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

RJS said

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.

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The injuries certainly hit the IOL hard, but a big part of the problem is that one of the guys they were counting on to be good all across the line was Udoh and he was terrible every place they played him. And, while Saldiveri and Lemieux were hurt at times, they never lived up to potential either. The only IOL of the "backup" guys that played okay was Patrick. The rest of the depth behind him was pretty bad.

The injuries hit the WRs bad too, but again, the guy they were counting on to be the solid veteran, Cedrick Wilson, did next to nothing which means that rookies and street free agents signed during the season had to take too many snaps.

So, while the concentration of injuries was a major problem, a misevaluation of the quality of the depth was also an issue at both positions.

But all this again is an issue with not drafting well enough, not taking enough draft picks over the years, and not developing young players well enough. The way to have quality depth is to draft well and develop mid-to-late round guys into good backups. Quality depth is too expensive to buy when you need it at nearly every position because you draft like 6 guys a year and don't hit on enough of those.