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Drew Brees appears set to ride off into the sunset (and then the NBC Sports broadcasting booth) after the 2020 season, if he so chooses, but the possibility of connecting with a high-profile draft prospect from his alma mater might be enough to keep him around for one more year. Maybe.
A recent 2021 mock draft from Luke Easterling over at Draft Wire linked the Saints with Rondale Moore, a dynamic weapon suggested by Pro Football Focus analyst Anthony Treash as a possible Heisman Trophy contender in 2020. Treash wrote of the Purdue Boilermakers phenom:
After being named a first-team All-American and winning the Paul Hornung Award (most versatile player in college football) as a true freshman in 2018, Moore came back in 2019 and looked like he would have an even bigger year. Then he suffered an injury in Week 5 that knocked him out the rest of the season.
That hamstring issue aside, Moore has a ton of momentum building behind him. He caught more passes as a true freshman (114) than the three next-best players combined (108) while averaging over 10 yards per carry on 21 rushing attempts, accounting for 29% of the touchdowns the Boilermakers scored on offense back in 2018 — again, as a true freshman.
In fact, PFF graded his performance that year as one of the best seasons ever put together by a first-year player at the college level, going back to 2014. Only uber-talented LSU Tigers cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. has rated better in that era. So, yeah: the Saints could definitely use someone with Moore’s skills. But if he’s able to live up to the hype in 2020 after an injury-shortened 2019, he might not make it to their draft slot.
An interesting (and welcome) wrinkle to 2021 mock drafts is that the Saints own each of their picks in the first two rounds for the first time since 2017. They traded their third-round choice next year to move up in the 2020 draft, but expect to recoup it as a compensatory pick after Teddy Bridgewater signed with the cross-division rival Carolina Panthers.
For the folks keeping score at home, the Saints have made selections in each of the first three rounds just three times over the last decade (2017, 2015, and 2010). An influx of young talent, maybe in the wake of Brees’ retirement, would be nice to see. In Easterling’s mock draft, he connected the Saints with Clemson Tigers pass rusher Xavier Thomas — not a bad find in the second round.
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