Thank you! there maybe better CBs in the draft... everybody is all sad as though they knew the Saints were gonna take him... we'll be fine... there are a ton of good CBs coming out. This just opened the door to a bunch of other possibilities.
My OP is not about whether or not the Saints were going to take Jenkins. I am not even suggesting that they were. I am saying that with a guy like Jenkins returning to school and the possibility that Laurinaitis will do the same, it makes it much more difficult for a top talent on defense to fall to us at #10. The consensus, as of right now, were that the top five defenders on the board for us were Dorsey, Ellis, Jenkins, Laurinaitis and Phillips. Take two of those guys away, and possibly three if Ellis does not come out, and you are left with us at #10 scrambling for Dorsey and Phillips who both could be gone by the time we are on the clock.
OF COURSE, WE DO NOT KNOW THAT. IT IS FAR TOO IN ADVANCE TO KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN AND WHO WILL BE THERE. Trust me, I recognize that. Still, it does make it more difficult when you have a lesser number of juniors coming out on the side of the ball where you need the most help. In other words, each "next" defender on the board moves up. That's not to say, again, that a top flight won't be available to us. But what it does say, for instance, is that a guy like Kenny Phillips moves up on the board automatically since a guy like Malcolm Jenkins is not coming out.