Draft News

By Alexander Wolz | 12 Up

There are few true unknowns when it comes to the offense for the New Orleans Saints. Drew Brees is an all-time quarterback, Alvin Kamara is an incredible playmaker in the backfield and Michael Thomas is arguably the league's best receiver, not to mention the dual-threat of Taysom Hill. Defense, however, is more of an open scenario, but a new draftee may be a leading man this season despite not yet being any kind of household name.

New Orleans took an aggressive approach in the 2020 NFL Draft, trading up to draft key rookies, including Zack Baun, a Wisconsin linebacker who unexpectedly slipped. The Saints came in to steal him away, and their fans should be happy about the decision.

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How did the NFC South fare in the 2020 NFL Draft? Which team had the best
overall haul from a RAS standpoint?

By Kent Platte | Pro Football Network

With the 2020 NFL Draft now complete, we’re able to take a look back at previous seasons and see if organizations are following any sort of trends from years past. Teams can be unpredictable at times, but they often follow the same sorts of behaviors with regards to decision making and risk management, trends that we can analyze to help us understand the approach to roster building those teams are taking.

To that end, we’re going to take a look at every division in the NFL and review how they’ve drafted in regards to general athleticism, continuing with the RAS in the NFC South.

Relative Athletic Scores, or RAS, compares player athletic testing to all players at that position with a vast database spanning more than 30 years. It then uses those scores to create a composite final score on a 0 to 10 scale, with 5.00 being the median score. Using RAS, we’re going to look at four division rivals and identify how much athletic testing has played into their draft process in the early rounds.

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Saints general manager Jeff Ireland had “pretty strong intel” the Chiefs would
have taken the Michigan center.

By Pete Sweeney and Craig Stout | Arrowhead Pride

Maybe it wasn’t Clyde Edwards-Helaire no matter what, after all — at least at No. 32.


NewOrleans.football’s Nick Underhill passed along news from New Orleans Saints assistant general manager Jeff Ireland that the team had “pretty strong intel” the Kansas City Chiefs would have taken Michigan center Cesar Ruiz had he been available at No. 32 overall in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Full Story - Arrowhead Pride

By Mike Detillier / Sports Correspondent

On the first night of the NFL Draft, the New Orleans Saints selected Michigan offensive center/guard Cesar Ruiz with their first overall selection.

I have always believed that Ruiz is a starting center prospect in the NFL. The center position will eventually be his spot with the Saints, even though they traded back into the second-round last year to select Texas A&M center Eric McCoy.

It will create another move to put McCoy at right offensive guard to eventually replace veteran Larry Warford.

Former New Orleans Saints offensive tackle Zach Strief, who is now the Voice of the Saints on WWL Radio 870-AM, said that he also believes Ruiz is best suited for the center spot, but maybe not in 2020.

“Reading your scouting report, seeing television tape on him and hearing different things about Cesar Ruiz, he looks best suited for the center spot, but there is something to consider here in 2020,” Strief said. “No one knows what training camp will look like and how many timing sessions he will have with the other linemen to work on getting that rhythm correctly. Last summer we all saw at times Eric McCoy was still holding the ball and the other four linemen were up the field. It’s not necessarily about the timing of Drew Brees and Ruiz, but Ruiz with the other four linemen to work as one. Drew will make the calls and adjustments upfront, but it is the timing of the others with a rookie center that is unknown at this time. Everyone has to be on the same page. If this was a regular training camp and you had the OTA’s, rookie sessions and the regular time to work with the other linemen, Ruiz would probably be slated to play center, but without anything concrete about how practices will be held before the season, I’m not sure Sean Payton wants to give Drew Brees a rookie starting center back to back years.”

Full Story - houmatoday.com