boutte
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Just about every draft projection from that draft had Penning as our pick.
Saints losing College Scouting Director to the Broncos for a personnel VP role (1 Viewer)
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Payton really want the Denver Saints
sfidc3
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It's hogwash, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Saints organization is behind it.....
I don't think you are taking into account how much luck and other factors play into draft picks.....no team hits on all of them....and Pennings physical metrics were comparable to the guy he was set to replace (TA - who may be the freakish athlete of a LT I've ever seen), someone clearly missed on the mental, work and development projection.....and that someone is rumored to be Loomis....
Folks routinely criticize personnel folks for the more recent drafts but IMO it was more the injuries, I mean Davenport would have been a really good player for us had he been able to stay healthy, he just can't seem to.....
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We don’t pay those guys to be our full-time scouts. I know how that mock draft process works. “Saints lost Armstead. Give them our highest rated OT.” Meanwhile Tyler Smith looks like he’s going to be the Cowboys LT for the next decade.
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I'm not ready to give up on Penning just yet. This is a critical offseason for him though.
nakadish
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Loomis didn't pull that out of his rear. Maybe there were some that didn't, but there were some that did and convinced Loomis that he was the guy. And even if you ignore Penning, there are still a lot of high draft pick misses. The later rounds are better, but when you only hit on mid to low round draft picks, you get a meh team.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if Ireland went with him.
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Sometimes change is good….we haven’t been setting the world on fire with our picks lately.
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Loomis is such a joke
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Yep. I’d like em all to be replaced. New blood.
SaintRay
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Slowly but surely I’m beginning to dislike Sean Payton. And I didn’t think that would ever happen.
He’s making sure to hurt the Saints over and over.
He’s making sure to hurt the Saints over and over.
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We’re doing it to ourselves so he ain’t alone
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Ireland was also against drafting him lol.
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I mean Loomis has the final say so in the end, it's his fault no matter what. But, Loomis isn't the guy out there doing the groundwork on him, talking to coaches, family, friends and the player beyond the time he spends with a guy during a combine or post combine interview which is highly limited. Someone has to supply him that information that only the scouts have.
Anyway, I find it hard to believe that the scouts were telling him that Penning was going to be a bust or was really a 6th round pick and he ignored them and took him in the middle of the first. Maybe it happened, but it seems unlikely given the way Loomis, Ireland, and Payton have always described the draft process as being collective with the scouts.
It seems more likely that the scouts were saying he was a lower first round pick or high 2nd round pick and Loomis chose to ignore that and draft him in the middle of the first because they were in desperate need of a LT. Clearly, it was the wrong move even if Penning gets healthy and turns into a solid player because he was taken way too high given how long it will have taken him to develop.
As far as injuries, I agree that injuries that didn't show up in college aren't really the fault of the scouts or the person making the pick. That being said, I think a major issue with Davenport is that he's just not that into being a football player. He lacks the desire to be great and that is a bigger issue for him than injuries.
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You're telling me that Ireland told Loomis we should not draft this player under any circumstances and Loomis said "fork it", I'm drafting him in the middle of the first round?
I suspect there is a lot more nuance to this that has been lost in the telephone game that has gotten the information this far.
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Yeah. Doesn’t sound like he hated the pick.
Ireland: All the way back to Northern Iowa into the fall. Actually, it goes back even to last year, going into the 2021 draft, because there was Spencer Brown, the other tackle (at Northern Iowa and a third-round pick of the Buffalo Bills). And I can remember our area scout. I didn't actually make that school call last year, but our area scout said, “We got a really good tackle (at Northern Iowa) this year, and wait ‘til you see the guy next year (Penning). And I remember sending a coach to go, I think it was (Dan) Roushar or Brendan Nugent, but I sent someone out there to work out Spencer Brown for last year’s draft, and Penning was at the actual workout. And even those guys, they're thinking they're watching the left tackle, Spencer Brown, but it was actually Penning they were watching. And so we had knowledge of the player. And then we knew going into the next season I took a call to go to Northern Iowa. I got to see him up close and personal, and so we were on him very early in the process. Obviously, his size and his movement skills stand out. And they raved about his character and makeup. So there were just lot of things we liked about him, and then he played in the Senior Bowl and had a good week there. And what you didn't know was the nastiness and the will to compete and strain. You can never push that on someone. That has to be innate. It’s so much easier to pull back on a guy and say, “Hey, don't be so aggressive.” It's hard to be, “Hey, be more aggressive.” You can scream and yell and do all those things to a player, and you'll never get it. So he has all the intangible things that we like and even some of the things that are really hard to find — that really nasty, aggressive and violent nature to him. And we like that about him, as well.”
Everyone talks about his size and physicality, but scouts say his athleticism is overlooked.
Ireland: Definitely. With offensive linemen, you're measuring athleticism in a very small area — moving backwards, his first step, his ability to stop and replace and recover. And he could do that as good as any player in this year's draft. Technique and fundamentals need to certainly get better, hand-use and things like that. Because he's not seeing the kind of power (in college) that he's about to see in this next season. So that's probably why he was there at (pick No.) 19 for us and wasn't gone before that. But the athleticism is absolutely there.
During your evaluation of a prospect like Penning, how much do you factor in the developmental ability of your coaching staff?
Ireland: When I was in Miami, my first pick as the general manager of the Dolphins was Jake Long. He was the first pick out of Michigan. Jake was 6-foot-7 and 325 (pounds). I remember the press conference after the draft, and I was, like, "Well, he's technically a little flawed, and we’ve got to get him better technically." Immediately, I heard, “Wait a second, you just took him as a first pick in the draft.” I'm like, well, every player coming into our league is technically flawed, even if he's playing at Michigan. And he ended up going to four straight Pro Bowls. I see this guy (Penning) having the same technical flaws, but also having the same ability as someone like a Jake Long. He just didn't play at Michigan.
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