Saints have their eye on WM basketball player (1 Viewer)

[LSSpam]

I don't see him being able to take a pounding on a regular basis or outrun a LB.I

Really? You know how fast he is? Because I haven't seen a 40 time or, hell, even watched him play basketball before. So I haven't the faintest idea how athletic this kid is. Maybe you can give us a full scouting report since you've seen Western Michigan play so often.

He would be nothing more then a project, but such projects have been taken on before. Everyone of course knows that Antonio Gates was an UDFA who had played basketball in college (in the MAC conference in fact) before being turned into a TE in the NFL. Jason Peters, the stud LT for the Buffalo Bills, was a tight end in college before being converted to LT. And Joe Staley came out of High School also a TE before being turned into a TE.

So the idea of taking a basketball player and turning him into a TE or taking a 250/260lb kid and trying to turn him into a 300lb OT, neither are completely absurd ideas.

The core problem is converting him to a T virtually guarantees he sits on your practice squad for 2 or so years, and he'd be a marginal TE initially as well.

Whether any team goes through the trouble of dealing with this depends on how athletic he is. Which I doubt any of us have any clue about. But I bet that's why those scouts were there (to see).

So kudos to those teams for doing their due diligence.

 

[Danchrism]

Everyone who keeps looking to find the next "Gates" is only kidding themselves. Every player has his own attributes and only makes people blind. A run blocking TE is pretty far down the list of priorities? Thank god you aren't the GM. How about a complete TE who may not be great in one thing but good/decent is both facets? That is what what every coach looks for in a TE. It helps with game planning and when deciding who will be on the roster.

Hilton was a lot farther along as a TE and was cut. I would hope the team wouldn't throw a draft pick down the drain for someone who never played the game. the odds of finding the next gates is one in a million.

We have a better chance finding the next colston than we do the next gates.

After the things I listed, yes a run-blocking TE is relatively far down the list. Factor in that we're a pass-first offense and...