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Kamara’s Early Impact and Much More
By Mike Detillier
Coming out of every NFL draft folks ask about immediate impact players for their respective teams. Every once in a while you get a signature player as a rookie as a pass rusher or defensive back, but most of those immediate first year impact guys are on offense at halfback or wide receiver.
Last season the San Diego Chargers got a big impact hit on defense with the selection of defensive end Joey Bosa and in 2015 the Kansas City Chiefs hit early gold in cornerback Marcus Peters, but in 2016 look at the impact wide receiver Michael Thomas made with the New Orleans Saints and the huge impact halfback Ezekiel Elliott had with the Dallas Cowboys.
Early contributions of wide receivers Odell Beckham, Jr., DeAndre Hopkins, Amari Cooper, Mike Evans and Jarvis Landry made them Year 1 impact players in the NFL.
While cornerback Marshon Lattimore and free safety Marcus Williams are talented players to add to the Saints defensive squad and it is so needed, I believe the Year 1 impact performer will be Tennessee halfback Alvin Kamara.
He fits the role that Reggie Bush and Darren Sproles played so well with the Black and Gold and his receiving skills will eat up some of the catches wide receiver Brandin Cooks had on the offensive side of the ball.
With Cooks now in New England, the combination of Kamara and the addition of veteran wideout Ted Ginn, Jr. should fill in that huge opening of catches out on the field.
As a rookie Reggie Bush split time with Deuce McAllister at the halfback spot, but the former USC Heisman Trophy winner was the ideal fit in Sean Payton’s offense as the back in the slot as a receiver, the receiver catching the swing pass, the edge runner and punt returner.
While McAllister was still considered the lead-dog runner Bush touched the ball 271 times in 2006 as a runner, receiver and return man and contributed 1,523 yards of all-purpose yards.
Sproles was an established performer when he came to the Saints after six seasons with the San Diego Chargers, but in his first season with New Orleans in 2011 he touched the ball 242 times for 2,696 yards as a runner, receiver, punt returner and kickoff return man which set a new NFL all-purpose yardage mark.
One AFC general manager told me his team tried to trade up into the 3rd round to draft the speedy Volunteer halfback.
“We had to go defense in Round #2 to fill a huge need spot, but when Alvin fell into Round #3 we started making calls,” the AFC general manager said. “We knew other teams were too and we had found a trade partner, but the Saints got him first. We thought he could be a “Jamaal Charles-Kansas City Chiefs” type edge back and receiver. Before the knee injuries settled in with Jamaal he was a really good back and we were willing to part with multiple picks to get Kamara. He’s a great fit for the Saints. It is part of the business you miss out on a player that really can boost an offense quickly in the league and Kamara could have done that with us and he will with New Orleans.”
With Mark Ingram still the heavy-duty rushing back and him being backed up by 32-year old and future NFL Hall of Fame halfback Adrian Peterson, the speedy Kamara may not get 271 or 242 touches in the 2017 season, but you can bet the bank Sean Payton has a specific and extensive role for him in the Saints offense and you might be surprised just how many touches as a runner, receiver and return man the former Volunteer halfback has when it is all said and done with in 2017.
Kamara is the new offensive toy for Sean Payton in 2017.
Another View of Lattimore and Hendrickson
After every NFL draft I try and find out from people in the personnel business their thoughts on picks from the New Orleans Saints. After the draft you get a more truthful version of what other teams really think about picks and I got some thoughts from a Director of College Scouting on a NFC team on cornerback Marshon Lattimore and defensive end Trey Hendrickson.
“Marshon (Lattimore) was our top cornerback by a good margin and he was our 6th ranked overall player. Our regional scout in the Midwest described him as “Aqib Talib without the baggage” and that’s pretty strong. You can see on tape his foot speed, his ability to quickly adjust to the football and he reads and reacts so quickly to a receiver’s route and he interrupts the timing of the pass. Marshon has superb recovery speed and good hands for the interception. The Saints got a really talented guy in Lattimore. The one good thing about Lattimore going to New Orleans is that he will be coached by Aaron Glenn. Aaron was a terrific player in this league and he can translate that well to the young player hitting the league. There will be some adjustment to the NFL with Lattimore because he didn’t play a lot of college football and to be honest teams found out early not to challenge him. I am still of the belief the Saints end up eventually doing a deal for cornerback Malcolm Butler from the Patriots too.”
“I watched a lot of Trey Hendrickson film at Florida Atlantic and got to see him practice at the East-West Shrine game and he reminds me a lot of Connor Barwin when he came out of the University of Cincinnati ,” the NFC director of college scouting said. “Connor and Trey are very similar and their games are both built on initial quickness, the ability to slip a block and they hustle to the ball. Connor has been a good player for both the Houston Texans and the Philadelphia Eagles. Trey has the skills to be that type of player and like Connor he is disruptive. He will be a situational guy early on, but he can certainly help the Saints pass rush and the coaches will love his hustle and desire.”
Trying to Build Upfront for the Future
One of the mistakes the New Orleans Saints brass made after the 2009 Super Bowl winning team was not making sure the team’s offensive line was built to last for future years. Quarterback Drew Brees has put up NFL Hall of Fame numbers throwing the football, but after the 2011 season this team just has not been able to effectively run the football when they need to or want to. And if the team can run the ball more effectively they can play a little “keep away” and not put the Saints porous defense back on the field as much.
A lot of that has to do with offensive line play.
Payton over the last few years has tried to piece together and I think now very successfully a young offensive line that can be in place for quite a few years for either an aging Drew Brees if he signs on to a new contract or in the future for that young quarterback who is still not on the roster to replace Brees.
Take a look at the age of the Saints offensive linemen, and while center Max Unger will be 31 years old come the start of the 2017 regular season and Zach Strief will start the 2017 season 33 years old, the age and talent level of the other offensive linemen are going to be the building blocks for future years.
- Offensive Tackle Terron Armstead - 26 years old
- Offensive Guard Larry Warford - 26 years old
- Offensive Guard Andrus Peat - 23 years old
- Offensive Tackle Ryan Ramczyk - 23 years old
- Offensive Tackle/Guard Senio Kelemete - 27 years old
Looking South for NFL Talent
If you don’t think Southern-based teams have not produced and developed the best players for the NFL just take a look at the 5 teams that have produced the most NFL draft choices over the past 5 years.
1. Alabama - 41 players
2. LSU, Florida and Florida State - all with 35 players
5. Ohio State - 33 players
Taking a Quick Look at 2018
The 2017 NFL draft has not dried in the books yet and already everyone wants to know about the 2018 NFL draft class. Right now it is clear cut that the two top players for the 2018 draft are Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen and USC’s gunslinger signal-caller Sam Darnold.
If you are looking at what the New Orleans Saints might do in Round One keep a close eye on a couple of Ohio State defensive ends in Sam Hubbard and Tyquan Lewis. No doubt the need area for the Saints going into the 2017 NFL draft was an edge rusher and it stays in that top spot today.
Both defensive ends are athletic, can get up the field in a flash and rush the quarterback. *And they play for the Buckeyes- which looks to be the football pipeline between Columbus and New Orleans now having Marshon Lattimore, Michael Thomas and Vonn Bell in the early draft plans for the Saints over the past two seasons.
The Cajun Cannon’s View
Former New Orleans Saints quarterback and now WWL-Radio sports talk show host Bobby Hebert had his own strong take on the 2017 New Orleans Saints draft.
“Everyone had Ohio State’s Marshon Lattimore as the top cornerback in the draft and he does fill a huge need spot, but I played quarterback in the NFL and no defensive back ever intimidated me on the field,” Hebert said.
“Writers and broadcasters can write and say what they want about coverage, but I went up against Deion Sanders, Ronnie Lott, Darrell Green, Aeneas Williams, Rod Woodson and Mike Haynes, all those guys are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I respected every one of those guys immensely as players, they were defensive difference-makers and they were great, but who intimidated me as a quarterback was the pass rusher. I knew I could throw the ball at any of those guys because with enough time my receiver would get open. Who intimidated me was Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, we had a special blocking scheme for Charles Haley, Howie Long, Bruce Smith, Richard Dent, Chris Doleman and John Randle. They were bringing it every play and even when they didn’t get close to me they influenced a play because of their presence on the field. You had to change your blocking schemes to keep them blocked. Playing with the Saints back then no offensive team we played against feared our secondary guys, but they feared Rickey Jackson and Pat Swilling coming off the edge."
"Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Eli Manning, Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers I know don’t fear defensive backs, but they know where those top edge rushers are on the field. Lattimore and Marcus Williams have a chance to really help the Saints defense, but you need players who can get sacks and pressures on the quarterback. That is the big difference on defense today.”
Saints Draft Memories - 1967
For almost 15 years I had the privilege to work with the “Big Daddy” of Sports in New Orleans in Buddy Diliberto. Buddy *D. covered the NFL before the New Orleans Saints even had an NFL team and he was the first and early on he was the only local sportscaster to really undercover the flaws in the opening days of the Black and Gold.
Buddy and I shared a lot of time on the air and off the air talking football until he passed away in 2005 and he spoke to me many years ago about what happened in Year One of the New Orleans Saints in 1967.
“It was total chaos,” Buddy D. said. “No one knew who was really in charge from day to day. John Mecom had never really run a business before and he trusted just about anyone and everyone who he spoke to. His dad, John, Sr., was one of the richest men in the world due to his success in the oilfield business, but young Mecom didn’t have his dad’s keen eye for surrounding himself with good people and the Mecom fortune luck ran out with Mecom, Jr.
John (Mecom) got talked into trading for Baltimore Colts quarterback Gary Cuozzo by Bedford Wynn, who was a stockholder in the Dallas Cowboys and he was a good friend of the commissioner Pete Rozelle and daddy Mecom. He had no job description, but he had Mecom’s ear. Young Mecom told me right after the trade for Cuozzo that he wanted, and head coach Tom Fears also wanted, to trade for Fran Tarkenton from the Minnesota Vikings, but the cost to get him was too high. The Vikings did end up sending Tarkenton to the New York Giants for a ton of draft picks.
But the biggest mistake he made was to hire Vic Schwenk who was with the Los Angeles Rams. He trumped up his resume for Mecom. He was a former head coach at Occidental College and he had worked in personnel matters before with the Rams. He ended up in Canada as the general manager of the Edmonton Eskimos before he returned to Los Angeles to be the special game-day scout for George Allen in 1966. He was a good friend of Pete Rozelle and the commissioner recommended him to the elder Mecom and he told Mecom, Jr., during the interview he was the head of college scouting for the Rams for Allen. All Schwenk did was cut game tape up for George Allen, but Mecom didn’t know any better and so he hired him as director of player personnel first and then he got the job of general manager.
One of the first things he did with the Saints was trade a 1968 second round pick to the Los Angeles Rams for scouting information. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that if you were the chief of college scouting why would you deal a second round pick for information you already knew? Well it was because he didn’t know anything about the college players and why would the Rams help the Saints anyway? The way I looked at it the commissioner (Pete Rozelle) was also trying to find jobs for guys with his old team the Los Angeles Rams and he was aiding them even though they were not qualified.”
But Diliberto told me there was one guy on the staff that had a good eye for talent and he knew the whole story behind the scenes and it was Jack Faulkner. Jack was a protégé of Sid Gillman, who was one of the most innovative offensive minds of his time, and Faulkner was a former head coach and general manager with the Denver Broncos. He got fired in Denver and then got on in 1966 as a scout looking at college and pro talent for the Los Angeles Rams. Tom Fears hired him to coach the secondary in the first year of the Saints and then later became the defensive coordinator.
But Faulkner had a good eye for talent and he saw the football world changing.
“Days before the draft I met up with Faulkner at a watering hole in New Orleans and he told me about all the things happening behind the scenes and that really no one had full control,” Diliberto said. “He was convinced even though every person with the team told John Mecom not to sign Jimmy Taylor away from the Green Bay Packers he felt Mecom would sign him to help sell tickets. Coach told me that the politicians from the state convinced Mecom to do so even though the outcry for tickets was unbelievable. The Saints had to give up their first round pick in 1968 for Taylor and he didn’t even make it through pre-season in 1968.
The Saints had dealt for Cuozzo, but Faulkner felt that while the former Colts quarterback had good accuracy that with an offensive line filled with castoffs and young players he would suffer. Cuozzo was not very mobile and he would have trouble connecting with a group of guys just thrown together also. Coach Faulkner told me that Gary (Cuozzo) was not a real fiery leader and he was right.
Faulkner told me in the days leading to the draft that Fears wanted to come out of the 1967 draft with a top halfback and fullback and a group of good front-seven players on defense. The Saints were given extra picks at the top of the round and also at the bottom of the round during the 17-round process. It was tailor-made to put some real strong building blocks in place for the future, but the architect was flawed in many ways.”
“Faulkner told me he spoke to Schwenk and told him that the information from the Rams was phony and they had played around with players and their true ratings and he should know because Faulkner was part of the scouting team. Picking in Round 2 he told me he spoke to Schwenk and suggested the Saints get one of four players with the last pick in Round One and the first pick in Round 2. The names Faulkner told me before the draft were the cornerback from Jackson State Lem Barney, halfback Willie Ellison from Texas Southern, linebacker Jim Lynch from Notre Dame and a linebacker from Morgan State in Willie Lanier.
This is 1967 now and there was still a lot of prejudice happening in regard to black players and Schwenk was real sensitive to it. Faulkner said that Schwenk balked on picking back to back players from predominately black schools, but what Schwenk couldn’t understand is that this was how the old AFL closed the personnel gap by picking up really good players from predominately black colleges and the NFL was still under a quota system. Schwenk knew that Mecom had a great love for Texas, Houston and Oklahoma players and he scratched the owner’s itch for those guys.”
“The Saints passed on Ellison-who the Rams took in Round 2 and the Chiefs took both Lynch and Lanier in Round 2 and the Detroit Lions picked Lem Barney early in Round 2. Lanier and Barney are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame today.”
The Saints picked a big fullback in Les Kelley from Alabama with the last pick in Round 1 and in Round 2 picked Bo Burris from Houston. Burris would be converted to safety after playing quarterback with Houston and it didn’t take long for Fears to see Kelley couldn’t play running back and they moved him to linebacker.
Faulkner told Buddy D. afterwards that after the first two picks and seeing how the other players went off the board he went to the former Broncos head coach for advice.
“Faulkner laughed and told me that Schwenk called him in to talk about other players because he saw how the guys came off the board in Round 2 and then he would take credit when he talked to Mecom for picking the players Faulkner recommended. Jack told me he suggested they pick up a speedy halfback/wide receiver prospect from South Carolina State in John Gilliam and defensive tackle Dave Rowe from Penn State.”
Both Gilliam and Rowe had good careers in the NFL, just not with the Saints because they were *both dealt off, but Gilliam did return the first kickoff ever in Saints regular season history for a touchdown.
Faulkner also suggested to Schwenk they select Florida State center Del Williams, who could also play guard and a running back from Maryland State in Charlie Stokes. Schwenk took his advice and selected Williams, but passed for Stokes to pick Oklahoma halfback Ben Hart.
Hart was a total bust in the NFL, but Williams had a very good NFL career with the Saints. Stokes was moved from running back to defensive back and had a successful career with the Baltimore Colts and later with the Los Angeles Rams.
In Round 4 there was heavy debate on where to go, but Faulkner insisted the Saints should draft Tennessee punter Ron Widby. Faulkner’s thought process was that the team would have trouble moving the ball in the early years and a top punter would pin teams back and make it hard for them to move down the field. Head coach Tom Fears also thought the idea was a good one.
Schwenk eventually went along, but Faulkner told Buddy D. he knew that as soon as Schwenk could his recommended guy would be cut loose by the Saints.
“Coach Faulkner said that John Mecom wanted Vic Schwenk to draft an Oklahoma wide receiver in James Roy Jackson with that pick of Widby, but the Oakland Raiders picked him up later in Round 4. Schwenk wanted to embarrass Tom Fears and he told the owner that Fears and Faulkner had both insisted on picking the punter even though he wanted Jackson. Jackson never played pro football with the Oakland Raiders, but it didn’t matter. Schwenk convinced the Saints owner the two didn’t agree with the owner’s recommendation. He was wedging his way into Mecom’s inner-circle.”
Tom McNeil did beat out Widby for the punting spot in the pre-season of 1967, but the former Tennessee standout punter went on to punt for 4 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and 2 additional seasons with the Green Bay Packers before suffering a career-ending injury.
The Cowboys actually signed Widby to their practice squad after the Saints cut him loose and he played basketball for one season in the ABA with the New Orleans Buccaneers from 1967-1968.
Faulkner told Diliberto he was never asked for recommendations again after the difference of opinion about Widby happened.
“Already the seeds of discontent were in place in New Orleans,” Buddy D. added. “Schwenk really wanted to eventually be the head coach of the team, not just general manager. He knew Fears was working for a very impatient owner and he wanted to position himself to take over the entire team as head coach and general manager and he grew to distrust Faulkner too because Jack Faulkner had head coaching and general manager experience with the Broncos. He caused the rift between Fears and Faulkner also. He would tell one guy one thing and the other guy something else. Before you knew it there was friction all across the board.”
Buddy D told me that Faulkner told him the whole story days before and after the 1967 draft and it became a part of football draft horror stories early on for the New Orleans Saints.
Follow Mike on Twitter at @MikeDetillier