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Where do you put the Saints against the rest of the NFL now that the draft and free agency’s big moves are behind us? Are they still one of the four or five best teams in the league? Are they even top ten? That’s not the case per Doug Farrar over at Touchdown Wire. Farrar ranks the Saints outside the top tier as his 14th-best team in the NFL coming out of the draft. Here’s what he wrote of their placement:
“Sean Payton went into the draft insisting that the Saints needed upgrades at the cornerback position, but outside of Stanford’s Paulson Adebo in the third round, not much was done there. Instead, New Orleans took Houston edge rusher Payton Turner in the first round — an interesting selection, as Turner was our eighth-ranked player at the position in this class.
“Of course, the key to the Saints’ success isn’t the pass rush; it’s how well the combination of Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston (Taymeis?) holds down the quarterback position at the beginning of the franchise’s post-Drew Brees era. If neither is able to … well, maybe Payton was on to something, because the NFL’s second-best defense in 2020 will have to be even better to get the Saints back to the playoffs.”
And Farrar isn’t really giving the Saints much credit among their peers in the NFC. He’s slotted them behind the Seahawks (12), the Bears (11), Washington (8), the Packers (4), and the Buccaneers (1). It’s true that the Saints have obvious problems on their roster between an unsettled quarterback situation and a question mark at cornerback. But New Orleans is returning every other starter in the secondary from last year’s successful unit and they should be up to the task of remaining competitive.
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