Well, this is a little surprising. The New Orleans Saints waited at their pick in the fourth round to choose Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book at No. 133 overall. He’ll compete with Trevor Siemian for the third spot on the depth chart in training camp behind Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill.
The Saints have posted a mixed bag of results in the fourth round in recent years; they didn’t have a fourth rounder last year, having traded it away, but added a big-time player on defense in 2019 with C.J. Gardner-Johnson. But their 2018 fourth round pick, Rick Leonard, quickly washed out. So keep expectations tempered for Book.
Book is undersized for NFL standards at 6-foot-flat and 211 pounds, much like Drew Brees was. He’s a good, not great, athlete who posted a Relative Athletic Score of 7.38. He threw 75 touchdowns against 20 interceptions while starting 35 of 47 games for the Fighting Irish, with a career pass completion rate of 63.8%. He did hit all seven of the benchmarks set by Sean Payton’s mentor Bill Parcells, and Payton has said before that Book plays the game much like he once did (which may or may not be a compliment).
