Saints haven't drafted a QB in the first round in the last 50 years

I have already posted that Corral would fit nicely in our system, but I suspect we will have to trade up to pick him. And we won't know what our needs are until the spring after free agency begins and we learn whom we will be losing and whether we have signed other players.

However, this thread does underscore how short-term the team's thinking has been since 2018 with acquiring talent. From 2018 through 2021, we had three first-round picks to spend. Admittedly, we were drafting late each year--and draft position matters. But we used those four first-round picks on Marcus Davenport, Cesar Ruiz, and Payton Turner.

Though he will get a big contract in next year--probably from us--Davenport thus far has not met expectations. At least not mine. He has the talent, but a substantial gaps lingers, in part because of injuries, between potential and production. The problem with drafting raw players like Davenport and Turner is that, even if they eventually approach their potential, their approaching potential takes too long. You want first-round picks to produce, if not in their first year, then in their second year, and you certainly want for the first five years (assuming the option is exercised) their production to substantially exceed their relatively low compensation under the collective bargaining agreement. A first-round pick who does not truly produce until the end of his rookie contract was not a good pick because the team is getting only for a limited period of time at a reasonable cost the production it had hoped for.

Ruiz was simply overdrafted. He should have been picked in the third- or fourth-round.

And I have no idea what Turner will do. He has shown flashes and has potential. But from the beginning of camp, he has been injured. And this is a player who needs practice time and playing time. Since the draft, media defenders of the pick have suggested that of course he was a first-round talent because other teams were going to pick him in the first round had the Saints not done so. And the response to that speculation is that every team says about nearly every high draft pick that other teams wanted to draft him high and that we really have no idea how high Turner would have been picked had the Saints not picked him.

And of course, because of Payton's impatience, the Saints has repeatedly traded away to draft picks to select players they like. There are times when trading up makes sense, especially with the quarterback position in the first round. But the result is that we have relatively little to show from the last four drafts. When it comes to the draft, Payton largely makes the big calls, but at this time I don't think we really need to be concerned about a team hiring Jeff Ireland as its general manager.