DWD's Offseason Forecast (Rob Ryan UPDATE) v. 4.0
If Jason Smith or Charles Brown is our starting LT we are in trouble.
I bet you said the same thing when you heard we were trading Jamaal Brown and putting the game in the hands of Jermon Bushrod...the guy from Townsend. The one we won a SB with.
We then went on to draft Charles Brown with a 2nd rounder. He has injury concerns but he was holding up fairly well@ RT and i believe he can play LT as well. Bushrod being so durable actually works against him..but hes good enough to play on the Right side.
The saints have shown that they have no problem cutting their losses if another person comes along and outperforms them or the player just flat out isn't that good.
With that being said..Charles Brown has stuck around and the best way to see if your 2nd round pick can play is by signing a replacement for Bushrod via FA but with a player thats on the second tier of FA. Why because unlike when we lost nicks we A dont value the tackle position to that extent and B we didn't have anyone to replace Nicks and because we value that position we signed someone we felt wasn't a drop of if any from Nicks.
My points is if the Saints haven't gotten rid of Charles Brown he will be given the opportunity to compete for the starting LT spot...especially since he is in a Contract Year.
The other way to solve that is to draft Lane Johnson if he falls to us and we don't address the need thru FA....but due to this teams history i don't see that happening. We tend to try to fill as many holes in the draft as possible so we can go BPA in the draft.
We prepared ourselves years ago for this situation with Bushrod Leaving by drafting Brown in the 2nd. Bushrod also made another probowl which drove up his asking price. No way we resign or tag him especially now that we are in the middle of a scheme switch.