Saints most overlooked rookie...

New Orleans Rob said

We have had several nice surprises from this year's draft. Makes you wonder what they were thinking the past few years. The funny thing is the only person that was relplaced was Payton. All the scouting people and the GM are the same. Does Payton really make this much of a difference? I sure hope so and hope he keeps up what he is doing because he surely has done a good job so far.

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It's clear that the Saints coaching staff's philosphy is the major influence on the Saints draft. Haslett wanted "athletes" with great numbers thinking (mistakenly) that he could "coach them up" into good football players. Payton prefers drafting overachievers who might lack great number but are smart football players. Haslett had 5 drafts, Payton has had one...but I think we can already see which is the better approach to the draft..

Evans is a perfect example, the kid got academic scholarship out of high school so he's smart. I openly questioned whether the former Bloomsburg Div. II LT could make the transition to NFL OG without being a long term project. Well....shows what I know, take a smart guy and put him in 6' 4" 329 lb. body, add good coaching from Doug Marrone = you get a very good and improving NFL guard. He's been overshadowed by Reggie Bush and super rookie Marques Colston but it's a Saints fans little secret that Evans is probably in the top three rookie O linemen - Ferguson, Mangold, Evans in no particular order.