Michael Thomas - Sports Science

saintsfannca said
I was very critical of this pick when it occurred. I feel like we needed to find some offensive line help. I'm a big believer in BPA, so I can't fault the Saints for staying true to their board. I still feel 100% positive we would have taken Garnett had he been there, but he wasn't so CSP got what he feels like was one of the best WRs in the draft.

I'm also not big into Sports Science, because they can make anybody look incredible. But I've fallen on my sword a bit with this pick. After letting go that the talent for OG just wasn't there with our 2nd round pick (pending Whitehair's future), I went back and watched a lot more footage on him and he is impressive.

I still think almost any WR would be productive in this offense, and this may be a bit of a luxury pick. But I think this puts our WR talk to bed at least for the next 6-7 years. With Cooks, Snead, Thomas, Coleman all 23 and under (Thomas is actually older than Cooks which is crazy) we are set at the position with SOLID talent.

Thomas has some shake-a-bility for a deep ball which is awesome out of a guy his size. He's got great Height/Weight/Speed which is the triangle stat that teams look for in WRs. As shown in the video, he has large hands which he uses well in traffic. From everything I've seen and read, he likes to mix it up and isn't afraid of going between the hashes. He'll obviously be productive in this offense, but I like the way he moves and is able to rack up YAC.

I'll cross my fingers for the Offensive Line, because we still will only go as far as they can protect Drew. But I have forsure come around on this signing. Obviously always will cheer for any Saints player.

Receiver was a HUGE need IMO. That was no luxury pick by a long shot. This offense needs decent receivers to succeed. I know you think Colston, Devery, Lance, and Meachem were just average receivers, but they were not IMO. Devery and Meachem were taken in the 2nd and 1st rounds of the draft, so they had talent for sure. You don't just get picked early in the draft if you don't have talent. Meachem never lived up to expectations, but I would argue he couldn't beat out Devery & Lance to get more reps. Devery was WAY important to this offense. He stretched the field and opened up the underneath routes for Colston, Lance, and Shockey.

The defensive tackle postion was so deep and that's why I was such a proponent to adding a receiver early. The guards were terrible or didn't fit what we wanted in them. Just the fact that Joshua Garnett went in the first shows that it was really weak. He shouldn't of been a first round pick IMO. Plenty of teams took guards through out the draft and we didn't so that tells me it wasn't as big of a need as we thought. I mean if it was and none of them were BPA at our picks, we should of been trading back and not trading up IMO. Or we should of traded up for a guard which we didn't.