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.

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