TheDeuce

Excluding the sentiment on Rankins, this pretty much sums up my feelings on the draft, spkb25.

I think Rankins is going to be a good player for us. Maybe not All-Pro, but he's a real competitor and has a lot of talent. Only thing preventing him from being All-Pro is his size.

Although I wasn't thrilled with the Thomas pick, I do think it's a solid pick and I know why we made it. I saw a stat that he had something like the third lowest drop rate (~8%) in college football last year. He's got good hands, good route runner, decent speed. Good match with Cooks.

I like the Bell pick a lot. We need safety help and he seems to be a playmaker. Thumbs up on this one.

In sum, I think we got better at DT, WR, and S. Good stuff, but those certainly weren't our only needs.

The third day of the draft just pissed me off... I've thought for several years that it seems the Saints decision makers overthink things. Maybe they think they're smarter than everybody else because they've drafted some success stories out of smaller schools. But they always seem to go in a different direction than what appears to be logical fits. I thought OG and speed rushing OLB/DE were serious needs, maybe could have used a CB... and they didn't address any of them. Instead they went for a guy who may not contribute this year. He may end up being like an Anthony Hargrove, guy who can play inside and outside but he's certainly not a speed rusher by any means. Maybe he'll be a good player... but the fact that he has only played ball for four years, and all of that in Canada, tells me he's got a lot of work ahead of him. Not only did we draft him, we traded next year's fifth round pick away to do so. Did we really think that this guy was that much better than a guy we could have taken in the fifth round at a position of need? There were several offensive linemen still on the board in the 5th that I would have preferred over this guy, and we could have kept next year's pick.

The seventh round pick just seemed like a throw away... did we really need another RB? Going into the draft I thought RB was arguably our least needed position. I just don't get these guys.

Yes, I know I'm not paid to be a professional scout and those guys are... but the draft success of this team has been awful for many years (check this out: National Football League: NFL Draft History - by Team ; 2014 is LOL bad). I hope Onyemata and Lasco turn out well, but just seems like we had a chance to at least try to address serious positions of need and just dgaf. Our OL is ****ty and we still don't have anybody who can consistently rush the passer (25th last year in sacks). Perhaps we'll make some good signings before the season starts, but we've got so much damned dead money on our books we're pretty limited in what we can do there. I just think the FO has lost the mojo they had from several years back.