SmashMouth

The New Orleans Saints drafted Tommy Stevens as a quarterback (with the potential to do more), then had him learn the offense as a quarterback in video meetings with the coaching staff this offseason.

But when the rubber met the road, New Orleans handed Stevens a No. 85 uniform and told him to learn how to play tight end — and the rookie obliged.

“I’ve said for as long as I can remember I’m always going to do what is asked of me by the team, by the organization,” Stevens said. “That carries back into high school.”

Coach Sean Payton said the team is taking into account what is obviously a steep learning curve for Stevens, who outside of dabbling in a few other positions has primarily played quarterback since he was a junior in high school.



He is green, Payton said, and he needs a lot of work, but they have been encouraged by his approach.

“He’ll correct the mistake and not let it affect him on the next play,” Payton said.

Tight ends coach Dan Campbell put it this way: The position is so entirely new to Stevens, he has to be taught it from a fundamental level, as if he was making the transition from high school to college.

Put another way, Stevens has probably never had to block a 300-plus pound defensive lineman on a play-in, play-out basis before training camp.

"He's starting to be doing things that that he is not familiar with (and) he's never done,” Campbell said. “So it's all just everything starting from the beginning.”

The athleticism is still intriguing to the Saints, and Stevens still will have a chance to show what he can do in multiple areas. But even with the benefit of having seen him practice, all of the evaluation to this point involves a lot of guesswork because it is incredibly early in a pretty major positional transition.

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