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Saints coach Sean Payton seems likely to open the regular season by throwing a dose of youth and inexperience at the visiting Atlanta Falcons.

As of Monday, 10 rookies - six of them undrafted - and three other players who have yet to be on the field for a regular season snap were on the Saints' 53-man roster.

Some of those players may not be active on Sunday, but the Saints will need several of them to suit up.

Asked if he found it unusual to head into Week 1 with zero regular season experience on more than one-fifth of the roster, Payton said, ''We don't pay much attention to that, really.''

''We look closely at how they're going to fit into the plan, how they're going to play in the kicking game and the progress they made at their position group,'' the coach added.

Receiver Kenny Stills, drafted in the fifth round, made a case during preseason that he might be the best deep threat on the club.

He not only gave opponents trouble with his speed, but also made some difficult catches that required balance along the sideline or the coordination to haul in a deep pass with one hand on a dead run.

Defensive end Glenn Foster, an undrafted free agent from Illinois, had four sacks, five quarterback hits and a forced fumble in the preseason.

Nick Toon, a 2012 fourth-round pick who spent his rookie season on injured reserve, was among the leading receivers in the preseason with nine catches for 164 yards, including a 56-yarder on a deep throw over the top from Drew Brees.

Safety Kenny Vaccaro, the club's first-round pick, made 18 preseason tackles, second most on the club, and looks like a hard hitter.

''The rookies and young guys definitely gave the fans something to smile about in the preseason,'' Vaccaro said. ''Nick and Kenny (Stills) flashed the whole time. Glenn Foster was a beast every game. We've got some young talent that can definitely help this team.''

Read more: Saints bring fresh faces into Week 1 vs. Atlanta - NFL News | FOX Sports on MSN

dizzle88

Seen as we have only kept 3 OLB's it looks to be that galette and Tez will be ready and haralson will be in the rotation

Rugby Saint II

They are crawling out from under the rocks to come find us.

TheOak

Looks like Payton is taking the Moneyball approach.

Vrillon82

whats fascinating the most is the fact of how good these rookies/2nd year guys like Toon has looked. We never seen in previous preseason games except maybe 1-2 guys like Ivory or Cadet in previous years.

based off this preseason and past preseasons, I firmly believe we will be leading the division to the end and get into the playoffs, but I cant say we will have a 13 or more wins, 12 is sufficient while Atl will finish below that.

homerj07

Trust in Coach.

triman

I am optimistic about the young players we have added at first glance we seemed to have improved in the secondary and at the wideout positions. The fact remains that we only have 3 OLBs on the roster and they have had zero preseason reps in a new defense.Cause for concern.

|Mitch|

Haralson played 3 of the 4 preseason games with the 49ers, it's not like he was sitting on the couch when we called him...

TheOak

Someone please help me... We will be in a 3-4 20% of the time and the rest will be 4-3... I doubt there are any players in the NFL that haven't played both.. Even our veterans have played both on this team.

Whats all the panic over learning the "new" defense?

|Mitch|

I don't get this; why completely change personnel for 20% of the time? Why move from smaller quick D-Line for larger and slightly slower so they can handle double teams 20% of the time? Same with the LBs...

All I've seen was that he only blitzed his ILBs 20% of the time?

More understanding of Ryan's defense: Understanding Rob Ryan's 3-4 Saints Defense