Tag: Alontae Taylor

Marshon Lattimore reports for Saints minicamp

After an offseason filled with questions about his future, Marshon Lattimore has arrived at Saints facilities for mandatory minicamp:

Marshon Lattimore is in Metairie, Louisiana at the New Orleans Saints facilities ahead of mandatory minicamp on Tuesday. That should quiet the noise around Lattimore, even if it’s just temporary.

Lattimore’s future in New Orleans has been a frequent topic of conversation this offseason. Honestly, those conversations started before the season ended. The Saints star cornerback ended the season on injured reserve, and there were whispers his relationship with Dennis Allen wasn’t at its strongest.

This is a narrative wasn’t completely false either. Allen stated he and Lattimore had a conversation during the offseason to clear up some narratives, such as trade rumors. Allen described the conversation as “positive” and expressed the expectation to see Lattimore at mandatory minicamp.

Lattimore is now in the building. Missing organized team activities isn’t rare for a veteran. It was only a talking point because of preconceived thoughts. His arrival feels like the end of all the questioning. Lattimore will be one of the two starting outside cornerbacks alongside Paulson Adebo. Alontae Taylor and Kool-Aid McKinstry may now battle for starting slot corner.

Everything suggests Marshon Lattimore will be in black and gold this year. The Saints are better for it. At the worst, the Saints know their defense will be strong on the outside.

B/R writers label Saints’ secondary as the team’s strength

Marshon Lattimore, Tyrann Mathieu, Paulson Adebo and more. The secondary is clearly the strength of the New Orleans Saints going into 2024:

Free agency and the NFL draft are behind us, so teams’ rosters are mostly complete for 2024. That prompted Bleacher Report’s Alex Ballentine and Kris Knox to identify the biggest strength of every NFC team as organized team activities ensue around the league. Once the strength was identified, Knox followed up with the key returning players, the biggest addition to the unit and a player to track in OTAs.

The New Orleans Saints’ secondary was labeled as the strength of the team. This should come as no surprise. This was the clear strength of the Saints in 2023, and Marcus Maye’s departure isn’t enough to drop the unit significantly. Marshon Lattimore, Tyrann Mathieu and Paulson Adebo still make this unit a force to be reckoned with. Here’s more from Knox and Ballentine:

General manager Mickey Loomis wisely used a first-round pick on offensive lineman Taliese Fuaga, but he came back in Round 2 to snag a first-round-caliber prospect in cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry.

McKinstry was the 15th-ranked overall prospect on the B/R Scouting Department’s final draft board and has the traits needed to become a solid starter quickly.

“His skills are undeniable and gives defensive coordinators the versatility to play multiple schemes,” Cory Giddings of the B/R Scouting Department wrote.

Fans will undoubtedly follow McKinstry’s development during OTAs and minicamps, but they should also keep an eye on undrafted safety Millard Bradford. The TCU product flashed some strong coverage skills in college (4 passes defended, 2 INTs in 2023) and could provide some additional depth behind Howden.

As long as free-agent addition Chase Young can help improve the pass rush alongside Carl Granderson and Cameron Jordan, New Orleans should have a top-10 pass defense in 2024.

The secondary is arguably the only unit on the team that commands a high level of belief and confidence from the fan base, but New Orleans wasn’t satisfied with rolling over last year’s talent. The Saints bolstered the unit by drafting McKinstry in the second round. He could compete with Alontae Taylor for the starting slot cornerback role as a rookie, but he has a lot of versatility.

Knox also highlighted undrafted rookie Millard Bradford as a player to watch during OTAs. The safety out of TCU could provide depth at the position. Maye’s replacement has yet to be solidified. Making an impression this offseason and preseason could get Bradford closer to that conversation.

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NFL.com says Paulson Adebo is the Saints’ most underappreciated player

Paulson Adebo was named the New Orleans Saints’ most underappreciated player. His star is rising going into a contract year:

It’s been a good spring for Paulson Adebo. The New Orleans Saints cornerback has received a lot of hype from a variety of outlets covering the NFL, which have described the corner as an underrated player, one of the league’s most-improved defenders, a secret superstar for New Orleans, and the Saints’ best-kept secret.

The latest praise for Adebo comes from NFL.com’s Tom Blair, who cited some numbers from NFL Next Gen Stats to build Adebo’s case as one of the league’s most underappreciated players:

One highlight of the Saints’ forgettable 2023 season was the pass defense — and one player who shined individually within that unit was Adebo, a second-year pro who tied for the team lead in picks (four). He also ranked third in the NFL in passes defensed (18) and posted the 10th-best passer rating allowed (58.5), according to NGS (min. 400 coverage snaps). Whether or not Derek Carr and the offense can fully cohere after an up-and-down 2023 is still uncertain, but Adebo is one of a handful of young standouts (along with Carl Granderson, Bryan Bresee and Alontae Taylor) who can help keep New Orleans competitive on D while Carr and Co. try to take a step forward.

Adebo was a third-round pick in the 2021 draft, so he’s a third-year pro, which means he’ll be a free agent in 2025 if the Saints don’t extend his contract. His star is rising at the perfect time to cash in next offseason. He leads the Saints in passes defensed (33) since he joined the team in 2021, which is tied with L’Jarius Sneed for 17th-most in the entire NFL.

Will the Saints let him leave? It’s possible. Their outlook at cornerback is tough to suss out. Marshon Lattimore could be traded this summer or next spring, and they have a couple of young draft picks competing for snaps in Alontae Taylor and Kool-Aid McKinstry. It’s very possible that Adebo’s asking price in 2025 is too high for them to match, so they opt to let him walk and  promote Taylor or McKinstry to a starting role opposite Lattimore. We also can’t rule out the possibility of Lattimore moving on, too. Both starting corners might be on new teams this time next year.

Still, the Saints have to be appreciating Adebo while they have him. He bounced back from a down year in 2022 while playing through injury to lock down opposing wideouts in 2023. Coverage penalties were a problem for him early in his career but he played clean football last season after knocking off some rust in the opening weeks. Whatever his future is after 2024, he’s going to be a critical piece of Dennis Allen’s defense in the fall.

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Saints pick yet another cornerback in this 2025 mock draft

The Saints picked Michigan cornerback Will Johnson in this 2025 mock draft. Either Marshon Lattimore or Paulson Adebo (or both) may not be on the team next year:

Just how many cornerbacks do the New Orleans Saints need? The team selected Alabama’s Kool-Aid McKinstry in the second round of the 2024 draft, but Doug Farrar’s latest 2025 mock draft at Touchdown Wire has them adding another corner next offseason.

Johnson has NFL size at 6-foot-2 and 202 pounds, and he was arguably the best player on a Michigan team that saw 13 Wolverines drafted in April. He’ll be a hot commodity in next year’s draft. And while the Saints run deep at cornerback right now, that might not be the case in 2025.

Starting corner Paulson Adebo will be a free agent in the spring. It will be easier for the Saints to trade Marshon Lattimore in 2025, too, in case that option is still on the table. McKinstry and Alontae Taylor are both starting-quality corners, but the Saints like to have three or more, and they might be looking for reinforcements next April. The secondary will remain a priority so long as Dennis Allen is their head coach.

So what is so special about Johnson? He’s shown tremendous ball skills with seven interceptions through two years at Michigan, and he tied for the second-most forced incompletions (6) on the Wolverines defense last season, per Pro Football Focus charting. He moves very well for someone his size and should clear whichever athletic thresholds the Saints look for. If either (or both) Lattimore or Adebo are playing elsewhere in 2025, he could be a smart pick for New Orleans.

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The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell: Inside the NFL’s press coverage revolution

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get deep into a new press coverage revolution in today’s NFL.

Over the last few seasons in the NFL, a lot of coaches and executives have tailored their defensive schemes in one specific fashion — an increase in press coverage from their cornerbacks. Not only the old-school aggressive press-man coverage we all know, but also mirror-match press man coverage, where a cornerback trails the receiver through his route as the route is declared.

Why? Because NFL offenses have found all kinds of ways to beat the old Seattle Cover-3 stuff from a decade ago with 3×1 and 2×2 receiver sets, and the route concepts inherent in those deployments. Now, if you’re rolling out that “Country Cover-3,” your defense is going to be in trouble.

There’s also the element of quick game in the league, which has increased in recent years. When the quarterback is throwing out of zero- to three-step drops, there are times when edge defenders simply don’t have time to get to the quarterback before the ball comes out. So, logic dictates that if you can’t disrupt the quarterback in the timing of the down, you need to disrupt the timing of the receivers’ routes, forcing the quarterback to delay his reads and throws, and giving those pass-rushers that extra split millisecond to get home.

In this week’s edition of “The Xs and Os,” Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup, and Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire and the USA Today Sports Media Group, investigate the NFL’s changes in press coverage, and the players who do it the best, including...

  • L’Jarius Sneed of the Titans;
  • A.J. Terrell of the Falcons;
  • Martin Emerson Jr. of the Browns;
  • Patrick Surtain Jr. of the Broncos;
  • Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner of the Jets; and
  • Joey Porter Jr. of the Steelers.

You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell” right here:

You can also listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Alontae Taylor ranked among NFL’s best press cornerbacks

Touchdown Wire ranked Alontae Taylor among the NFL’s best press cornerbacks. The Saints’ nickel has handled some tough assignments:

There may not be a tougher job in the NFL than running with a receiver in press coverage. The margin for error shrinks to almost nothing, and defensive backs are at a disadvantage by running while being asked to keep their hands on the wideout and tracking the ball in flight — and doing it all while sprinting backwards.

But some corners are better at it than others. And New Orleans Saints nickel Alontae Taylor earned high praise for his skills in press coverage from Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar, who ranked him seventh-best among his peers. Taylor struggled to learn on the job in the slot last season, a role he had never played before, but he responded very well when given the chance to do what he does best.

Here’s why Farrar regards him so highly:

The Saints are another team with a high rate of press coverage — they did so with at least one cornerback on 73% of their snaps last season, third-highest behind the Falcons and Chiefs. Usually, the one cornerback in press was Alontae Taylor, who became a major factor in New Orleans’ defense soon after he was selected in the second round of the 2022 draft out of Tennessee. Last season, Taylor was in press on 150 of his 976 snaps, and he allowed 12 catches on 27 press targets for 5.4 yards per play, three explosive plays, no touchdowns, and one interception.

Taylor did his thing against a lot of top receivers last season, and he was especially effective against Green Bay’s Romeo Doubs, who had the Stat Line from Hell when Taylor was in his face and matching him through routes

What’s next for Taylor? With the Saints unlikely to trade Marshon Lattimore this summer and Kool-Aid McKinstry joining the team, odds are good that Paulson Adebo will continue to start out wide where he beat Taylor last offseason. Expect McKinstry to compete with Taylor for the opportunity to start in the slot, with the loser taking snaps at safety in the team’s dime defense so head coach Dennis Allen can get his four best cornerbacks on the field at the same time. It’s going to create a highly competitive environment at training camp. May the best man win.

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PFF names Paulson Adebo one of the NFL’s most underrated players

Pro Football Focus picked New Orleans Saints cornerback Paulson Adebo as one of the NFL’s most underrated players:

Paulson Adebo developed into a player the New Orleans saints could lean on in 2023. The cornerback is going into his fourth season in black and gold, and he’s gotten the team through some tough situations when Marshon Lattimore was sidelined by injuries and Alontae Taylor was getting picked on while learning to cover the slot. Adebo is still searching for his first Pro Bowl Games appearance, but he is well-known to those in the know.

And he’s starting to draw more attention. Pro Football Focus analyst Zoltan Buday, who identified the most underrated player on all 32 teams. Here’s why he says Adebo stands apart from his Saints teammates:

Although Adebo has earned a lot of playing time since the Saints drafted him in the third round in 2021, it was not until 2023 that he put it all together and started playing as one of the better cornerbacks in the NFL. His 78.7 PFF overall grade ranked 15th among cornerbacks in 2023, and he orchestrated a three-game stretch between Weeks 8 and 10 as the NFL’s highest-graded cornerback in coverage (94.6). Adebo recorded four interceptions over those three weeks

While he’s intercepted just seven passes in 44 career games, Adebo has gotten his hands on plenty of footballs. He’s tied with L’Jarius Sneed for the most passes defensed (33) since entering the league in 2021, which ranks 16th among all cornerbacks over the last three years.

And like Sneed, Adebo is headed for a big payday. After being traded to the Tennessee Titans this offseason, Sneed agreed to terms on a four-year, $76.4 million deal that guaranteed him $51.4 million at signing. For context, Sneed has matched Adebo’s totals in interceptions (7) and passes deflected (33) while playing in four more games. He’s also more than two years Adebo’s senior, having turned 27 in January (Adebo celebrates his 25th birthday in July).

So Adebo won’t be an underrated player much longer. If he can sustain his impressive level of play in 2023 into 2024 he’ll be a coveted free agent in 2025. The question then becomes whether the Saints can afford to re-sign him. With trade speculation surrounding Lattimore, Adebo’s uncertain future helps explain why the Saints have drafted second-round corners like Taylor and Kool-Aid McKinstry in recent years. For now, they should enjoy the benefits of strong depth in the secondary.

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Saints waive backup quarterback Kellen Mond before rookie minicamp

The Saints waived backup quarterback Kellen Mond before rookie minicamp. Change was inevitable after the team drafted Spencer Rattler:

And then there were four. ESPN’s Field Yates first reported that the New Orleans Saints have waived backup quarterback Kellen Mond, just a few days before the start of rookie minicamp. The Saints were overcrowded at quarterback between Derek Carr, Jake Haener, Nathan Peterman, Mond, and this year’s fifth-round draft pick Spencer Rattler. Someone was going to go.

As we expected, Mond was the first to go. He was also the latest to sign, having arrived in New Orleans just before the 2024 NFL draft (and a month after Peterman). So Peterman will have to make his case for a spot on the Saints practice squad at training camp this summer while Haener and Rattler compete for the backup job behind Carr.

Something else to note: Mond leaving frees up the No. 2 jersey, which could be highly coveted. Both wide receiver Chris Olave and cornerback Alontae Taylor have hinted at switching to it on social media this offseason. If Taylor wants to pick it up that would open the No. 1 jersey for his rookie teammate Kool-Aid McKinstry. Fans may want to see Olave in his college number, but buying out unsold stock in his No. 12 jerseys might be cost-prohibitive. Stay tuned.

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Fans should expect a delay in Saints signing Kool-Aid McKinstry

Fans should expect a delay in the Saints signing Kool-Aid McKinstry. Second-round draft pick contracts have become a battleground between teams and agents:

Look ahead a few months and we can guess what New Orleans Saints fans will be asking: why hasn’t Kool-Aid McKinstry signed his contract? Recent collective bargaining agreements between the NFL and the players union has streamlined negotiations on rookie contracts, so there aren’t many points of conflict remaining. Most of the Saints draft class now signs their deals after rookie minicamp in May. But there’s one area that has turned into a battlefield: contracts for second round picks.

First-round pick contracts are fully guaranteed for the first four years, and we’re seeing players picked high in the second round receive heavier guarantees into the third and even fourth years of their deals. Agents are working to squeeze more guaranteed money for their clients but it’s leading to delays in getting these contracts signed.

Both of McKinstry’s predecessors, Isaiah Foskey (the 40th pick in 2023) and Alontae Taylor (the 49th pick in 2022) signed their contracts on July 19, when rookies reported about a week before training camp. So we should expect a similar delay for him. McKinstry was picked at No. 41 after the Saints traded up for him.

Last year, Foskey won guarantees for 95.98% of his salary in 2025 (the third year of his contract). As noted by NFL salary cap analyst Miguel Benzan, also known as Patscap, Foskey was the eighth player picked in 2023’s second round to get his first three salaries guaranteed. In 2022 just five second rounders managed that. And in 2021, only two second-round picks got three years guaranteed. So it’s slowly creeping higher, which is good news for young players.

That’s bad news for anxious Saints fans who want to see every draft pick signed as quickly as possible. But they’ll be alright. The new CBA has leveled such heavy fines for players holding out during training camp that the off-field drama is almost nonexistent, especially among rookies. You’d hope that Mickey Loomis and Khai Harley have learned from past experiences to get these deals done as soon as possible. We’ll just have to wait and see whether McKinstry continues the trend or if the Saints can finalize his contract sooner than they have in the past.

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Alontae Taylor hints at changing his Saints jersey number again

Alontae Taylor hinted at changing his Saints jersey number again on social media. Who could end up wearing No. 1?

Alontae Taylor has maintained an interesting social media presence during his career with the New Orleans Saints, and another chapter was added on Tuesday as he hinted at changing his jersey number for a second time.

After coming into the NFL and initially choosing the No. 27, he switched to No. 1 for 2023. Now, he is hinting at changing to his college number of 2. Jameis Winston held it when Taylor first joined the team, so it only recently became available.

The No. 2 jersey is currently being used by backup quarterback Kellen Mond. Mond could be cut, though, after the team drafted Spencer Rattler. Taylor may be hinting at changing his number because rookie cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry wore No. 1 in college.

This also isn’t the first time this offseason that someone has mentioned changing into No. 2, as Chris Olave also made a reference to switching his number as well. That didn’t come to fruition, possibly because of the costs involved in buying unsold No. 12 jerseys to facilitate the move (which would be prohibitive on a rookie salary).

Who will end up wearing the number? Is Taylor really hinting at a move? Only time will tell.

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