Underhill article: “Saints moves are telling us what they felt the real problem with the team was last season”

The lack of depth on last year's as a roster overall might be true, but not where it ended up mattering most. The team went into training camp last year with a starting OL of Fuaga/Saldeveri/McCoy/Ruiz/Penning.

They signed Lucas Patrick and Shane Lemieux to be the primary backups on the interior. Both had experience playing guard and center. They're exactly what you want as IOL depth.

Saldeveri gets hurt and that moves Patrick into the starting guard spot (taking away McCoy's #1 backup). McCoy gets hurt week 3 and the shuffling starts. Lemieux and Ruiz both then get hurt and they now are on the street finding a center. It was a crazy cluster of injuries.

I was way more worried about the depth at tackle than I was at IOL going into last year. They just got crushed at the one position group that they had a good plan for. Stuff happens.