Some New Orleans Saints players benefited more than others once the 2020 NFL Draft wrapped up. Others found themselves on more unstable ground than when the event started, while the futures of this year’s rookie class is yet to be decided.
Let’s get into our winners and losers for the Saints from the 2020 draft:
Winners
Saints wide receivers
We went into the draft thinking the Saints would take advantage of rare depth among the wide receiver class and overwhelm Drew Brees with weapons. That’s not what happened. Instead, the Saints showed a lot of faith in their depth chart as-is, waiting until the undrafted free agency frenzy to add any new talent at the position.
That’s good news for players like Tre’Quan Smith, Krishawn Hogan, and Lil’Jordan Humphrey, not to mention Deonte Harris. Every wideout ranked after Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders now knows who they will be competing against in training camp, and their opponents won’t have the luxury of high draft status to give them an edge. The best players will get the most opportunities, as it should be.
Adam Trautman
This might be the perfect situation for Trautman to step into, given his background at a small school not known for putting players into the NFL. He’ll be able to lean on the decade-plus of experience that Jared Cook and Josh Hill have collected in their NFL careers, providing perfect models of how he too can succeed at the game’s highest level.
He also won’t have to be rushed into a role he isn’t ready for. Cook can continue to dominate targets through the air while Hill handles blocking duties. The Saints have shuffled their third tight end spot around often the last few years, trying to find a backup blocker who can lessen Hill’s workload, and Trautman can fill that role while thoroughly learning the playbook.
Alvin Kamara
The Saints had opportunities to draft a running back of the future, but instead they reinforced the offensive line and made sure to invest in better blocking up front and out wide on screens. That’s great news for Kamara, who is headed for the final year of his rookie contract (and who also was never dangled as trade bait with other teams).
Kamara’s immediate job security is now tighter than it’s ever been before, with no immediate replacement on hand and a stronger supporting cast around him. Cesar Ruiz starting at center should push Erik McCoy to guard, where both players can do a better job executing blocks in space and up the middle than the Saints were able to do last year. Now we need to see whether the Saints will try to re-sign Kamara to a big-money contract extension before the season, because his value will skyrocket if they wait too long.
Losers
Kiko Alonso
Alonso agreed to restructure his contract so that money which was previously guaranteed is now available to him through meeting playing-time benchmarks. That’s going to be tough with a younger, more athletic player in the way with Zack Baun. Sure, both of them can coexist — but Alonso isn’t promised a starting job with Baun drafted so highly, on top of his season-ending knee injury.
It’ll be fascinating to see who gets the starting nod at linebacker next to Demario Davis. The Saints fielded just two linebackers on a majority of the plays they ran last year, so whoever wins the competition between Alonso, Baun, and Alex Anzalone should dominate the snaps count. Anzalone was the go-to option in the past when healthy (mostly playing at middle linebacker), so for now it’s his job to lose.
Larry Warford
I would love to be a fly on the wall when the Saints coaching staff did their film review and decided that Warford had a worse year than left guard Andrus Peat. Maybe it can be chalked up to the age difference and Peat’s injury history. But Warford was the healthier player and, at least at first glance, had a better season. Unfortunately for him, the Saints showed that they feel differently.
Now that Ruiz is the team’s first-round pick, Warford’s days in New Orleans should be measured in days. He’s due to count nearly $13 million against the salary cap this year, and that’s not an amount the Saints can afford to have sitting on the bench. Either Ruiz or McCoy is going to take Warford’s starting job in training camp (McCoy should be seen as the favorite right now given how highly the team rated Ruiz), with Peat secure on the left side thanks to the $33 million his recent extension guaranteed.
The NFC
While the San Francisco 49ers were busy traded away veterans and the Green Bay Packers actively undercut Aaron Rodgers’ chances of winning another Super Bowl, the Saints took action to surround Drew Brees with better blocking up front, a deeper armory of pass catchers, and an ironclad defense. The team worked quickly to address its largest positions of need and left the draft with instant-impact players at all three levels of the field. The clock is ticking on Trautman slipping free of the defense and catching a 30-yard bomb from Brees down the seam, by the way.
Right now, the 49ers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers look like the chief challengers to the Saints for the right to represent the conference in this year’s Super Bowl. The overrated NFC East teams will definitely get lots of media buzz (especially the Dallas Cowboys, who had their first good draft in years) but the Saints know those teams well, and they know how to beat them. The Packers have the look of a team set to regress hard from last year’s conference title game berth. The always-unpredictable NFC West could have all four squads competing for the playoffs, or cannibalizing each other.
Right now, it sure feels like Brees will end up in a showdown with Tom Brady. And that has to excite every football fan in the world.
