Re-examining the Johnathan Sullivan pick

You're going to think I'm crazy for saying this but I liked the move then and I still don't have a problem with it. Why? Because the Saints made a strong, aggressive move to go up in the draft and get a guy they thought was going to be an impact player. I will always support that type of move. The failure was in the player we took, not in moving up to get him.

Let's hop in the wayback machine and set the stage. We had just come off a 2002 season where the offense lit everybody up (until Brooks got hurt) but the defense couldn't stop the run. We were gashed all season right up the middle. It was clear we needed a disrupter in the middle. If you recall, there were about 5 highly touted DTs in that draft and in the weeks leading up to draft day, they all started moving up the board. We were sitting at #17 & #18 by virtue of the Rickey Williams trade and it was actually starting to look like there was going to be a run on DTs to the point where there wouldn't be any left by #17. Dewayne Robertson was the guy we really coveted but the Jets moved up to get him at #4. That left Jimmy Kennedy, William Joseph, Kevin Williams and Sullivan. On draft day, Loomis engineered a masterful trade with Arizona to move up to #6 and we picked Sully.

In hindsight, the guy we probably should have grabbed was Williams. As I said, I think the place where we screwed up was taking Sullivan, not in moving up. If you're going to move up that far, you better be damned sure that the player you pick is the player you think he is. That's a failure of the Scouting Dept., not Loomis. Note that right after that, we hired Rick Reiprish to handle college scouting and left Mueller to mainly deal with pro scouting. So to the person who said that they hope that the FO learns from this, I think they have. The lesson is don't let Mueller anywhere near the draft board.

The other lesson they learned is not to reach for need. There was a fundamental change in draft philosophy following the Sullivan debacle. Now the Saints try to fill holes with free agency and draft best player available. I think this has worked out pretty well so far. Will Smith was a great pick even though we really didn't have a need at DE. A lot of us were scratching our heads over that one but tell me: do you miss Darren Howard right now? OT was a need when we traded up to get Jamaal Brown but we only traded a few spots because another team (the Panthers?) were planning to take him. And it wasn't a reach. The Bush pick you can't really include in that list because he fell into our lap. There was no way to screw that up.

I think this year we'll see more of the same. We'll be active in free agency to fill the big holes we have (CB, LB, DLine) and we'll draft BPA on draft day. I don't think we'll be going after the "name brand" players too much. We never do because you have to pay too much to get them. I don't think that's Benson being cheap; I think it's just smart football.

I also expect us to take a QB in a late round. In fact, I expect us to do this almost every year. Eventually we'll need to replace Brees. So we draft a guy and start grooming him now. If he develops and we don't need him, we can trade him for a higher round pick than we spent on him. Buy low, sell high. If we do need him, we'll have him. If he doesn't develop, it hasn't cost us much. We draft another late-round QB the following year. Lather, rinse, repeat.