The folly of keeping Marcus Davenport and letting Hendrickson go

The Davenport trade was a byproduct of trying to finally find a pass rusher opposite Cam Jordan to milk the last years of Drew Brees for a SuperBowl run. Our secondary was solid and DE was the most pressing position on the entire team. Davenport was rated as a first round pick, raw, grew late in his frame after going to a small school with ties to Louisiana. Davenport would not have been there late in the first when we picked but there were other players we could have gotten most notably Lamar Jackson who ESPN openly suggested we would take when the trade happened. The other obvious pick if we had only still needed a safety was Derwin James who was rated as a top ten pick. Davenport is injury prone and bombed out in his last year in New Orleans.

All of this occurred before Hendrickson had his best year (around 11 sacks) on a stacked Saints defense that beat the future Super Bowl champions in Tampa Bay twice in the regular season and lost to them in Brees' final game in the playoffs.

Hopefully Peyton Turner can step up this year and have us not repeat lost potential in a first round pick. I understand the front office for moving on from Davenport. I also understand why we drafted him given where the team was at the time.