Build the Saints' 3-4 Defense (11 Viewers)

[3ParStillDriver]

Good question. 9 is probably too high for Grant even though the talk is what he does allows Graham to do his thing. I might go Graham at 9 and then either Grant or Collins at 40 and Black later. I think the only DTs on the roster we should retain is Bresee and Ridgeway. The others can be traded to a 4-3 team.

Grant won't make it to 40. Just like everyone for some silly reason had Tyler Warren going in the 2nd round back in December, a lot are doing the same with Grant. Grant is a realistic fringe top 10 pick and will likely be gone in the top 20. Mock drafts are starting to catch up to sense and many are starting to show him going to top 20, some even top 10.

 

[3ParStillDriver]

We don't have an NT on this team. The position proposals on this thread are a bit fantasy land. Rather than going into details, I'll just let you look at the results. We got man handled in the middle last season. Ridgeway, Saunders, Sheppard... it didn't matter who was there. Any of them at NT would wield even worse results and the entire defense would crumble.

On top of that, Staley's entire defensive system is based on the entire concept of forcing offenses outside, which requires a strong center.

Bresee, based on last season cannot be DE either. Another fantasy. He has to massively improve his ability to play run defense. Can he? Maybe. But also maybe not. But even if he can improve it greatly, its not happening over one offseason. Gotta be realistic.

Our ILB's are also extremely weak. Perhaps Werner can make a switch to the MIKE or WILL. But Davis showed a massive amount of slowing down against the pass last season.

Bottom Line : Any of you hoping our first year defense will be good in this new scheme are very likely fooling yourselves. We're going to need a defensive overhaul, and this defense will likely look entirely different come start of year 3. The only reason I'm not saying it'll look entirely different then start of this season is because we don't have the free agency money to make the personal changes. We're not 1 position away either, we're like 5+ positions away. And no, not a single draft pick, even if we commit the entire draft to defense would solve the issues. On offense however, we're a lot closer. So don't be surprise if we see an influx of offensive picks this draft, clean up the cap and turn heavily to free agency and draft next year to address defense.

It would also provide the coaching staff a year to train these players, see who adjusts and looks like they'll have success in the new scheme so that they can make intelligent personal changes next offseason rather than knee jerk reactions.