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Will Clapp feels right at home. He should.

Except he's not trucking pee-wee players from playgrounds like Little Farms or Girard at his old Lakeshore stomping grounds near Bucktown. He's not living with mom and dad in Metairie like New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton suggested to save money on rent.

"I don't think my parents want me there with them," Clapp said with a baby-faced smile and rosy red cheeks on a 6-foot-5, 315-pound manly frame.



The Saints' 2018 seventh-round pick jumped into old habits the past few months leading up to and then leaving the NFL Draft.

Clapp reverted to his familiar high school weight room in Gentily. After all, the teenagers literally and figuratively look up at him at his alma mater Brother Martin.

"Will comes in and starts his lifting here at Brother Martin," Brother Martin coach Mark Bonis said. "Working on his strength. It's great also for your kids to see him on campus leading up to being drafted and then being drafted. He's there and they can see firsthand."

Clapp walked back into the Crusaders' workout room like he never left for a successful LSU career or for his boyhood dream of playing for the Saints.

"I know a lot of the kids still at Brother Martin because my brother still goes there and one just got out of there," Clapp said. "So it's not some major shock and it's still fresh for me to be there."

Bonis begs to differ, and yet he believes it speaks to the character of Clapp to even think that way.

"When you look at Will as saw from our kids' standpoint, Will is an example right in front of them of living out our core principles at Brother Martin," Bonis said. "And in order for Will to reach that goal, he had to live up to those principles."

Clapp might not be a regular in Brother Martin's weight room anymore, though, now he's received his first taste of NFL life during this weekend's Saints rookie minicamp.

Clapp, the first LSU player drafted by the Saints since 2010, worked strictly at center snapping the ball to former Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett. A couple of snaps drifted low during Saturday's practice. Barrett still snagged the football and completed the passes with relative ease.

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Rugby Saint II

If we keep him out of the high school weight room and let the NFL conditioning program do its thing then he's got the potential to earn a starting spot in a couple of years. He's definitely a project though!

homerj07

Local boy makes good always looks good.

If he develops and becomes a good player then it's an awesome story.