At this point in the offseason, all teams in the National Football League began their respective training camps. Players re-commence official practices, coaches are instilling playbooks, and everyone is gearing up for the upcoming season.
On Friday, July 26th, the New Orleans Saints reported to camp, and already media and fans are seeing glimpses of what’s to come. With some intriguing moves already being made, let’s explore what training camp has revealed.
Saints nail the Jared Cook signing
It has been five years since Jimmy Graham and Drew Brees ruled the gridiron with a deadly connection. During his four-year stay in New Orleans, Graham averaged ten touchdowns per season and seemed like an unstoppable force in Sean Payton’s explosive offense.
However, after the 2014 season, the Saints shipped Graham and a fourth-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks for recently-retired center Max Unger and a first-round pick. What initially shocked fans across the country turned out to be a win for the Saints.
From 2015 to the present, Graham has not come close to repeating his on-field dominance. Throughout his three years in Seattle and last season with the Green Bay Packers, Graham has only found the endzone 21 times and has failed to gain more than 650 yards in three out of four seasons.
On the other hand, Max Unger has continued his fantastic play under center and developed into one of the best linemen Drew Brees has played with over his 18-year career. While the trade return was phenomenal, the post-Jimmy tight end play has not been the best.
The position has been a revolving door. The only TE to be a part of the team continuously since Graham’s departure is Josh Hill, who has never had more than 200 receiving yards in a season. Benjamin Watson is the only person at the position to put up respectable numbers, but even still nothing has ever popped off the page.
With an evident hole on the team, the Saints decided to invest not only in another reliable target for the offense but a quality tight end who can take this team to a new level. Enter Jared Cook.
Both Brees and Cook get an upgrade for their games. Brees finally has a tight end who can produce offensively and move the chains consistently. Cook finally gets to come out of wretched quarterback play hell and play with a future Hall of Famer. Here are the QBs who have thrown passes to Cook throughout his career: Vince Young, Kerry Collins, Rusty Smith, Matt Hasselbeck, Jake Locker, Sam Bradford, Kellen Clemens, Shaun Hill, Austin Davis, Case Keenum, St. Louis Rams Nick Foles, Aaron Rodgers, E.J. Manuel, and Derek Carr.
Besides Rodgers and maybe Carr (the jury is still out on him), that’s not a very good list whatsoever. To top it off, Cook has only had two of his ten seasons in the NFL with the starting QB playing all 16 games. You can’t say the same for the Saints who have luckily been blessed with a relatively clean run with Drew Brees. Sure he’s been dinged up some but nothing major compared to other starting QBs with his level of talent.
While it is only training camp, the duo already looks to have a great connection. Pads are on, and Cook is making incredible receptions meaning Brees has another quality set of hands to back up wide receiver Michael Thomas.
#Saints plays of the day continued:
Drew Brees to Jared Cook, who beats double-coverage for the catch. Wow! @FOX8NOLA pic.twitter.com/a82FpiSxlG— Garland Gillen (@garlandgillen) July 28, 2019
Saints fans can only hope this is the beginning of a commanding passing attack for the season to come.
An intriguing roster move on offense
Earlier this offseason I discussed the Saints receiving core highlighting the injuries from last season. Well, the Saints pulled the plug on one project. As of yesterday, New Orleans cut WR Cameron Meredith. In 2018, the Saints signed Meredith to a two-year/$9.5 million contract. Unfortunately, Meredith never fully recovered from a knee injury in 2017 and caused him to miss time last season.
It all came down to a fierce look at the roster for the front office. According to ESPN writer Mike Triplett, head coach Sean Payton said, “The injury he had set him back, and then some of these younger guys now have just been doing a good enough job. And it’s hard with the numbers.” With Meredith gone, who are the young guys making the splash? One name to watch for throughout training camp is undrafted rookie Emmanuel Butler.
So far Butler has turned heads not just during training camp, but in OTA’s and mini-camp as well. He is contributing positive and noteworthy plays every practice and could provide some seriously needed depth in the wide receiver room. I’m not seeing many undrafted WR snatching balls like this in their first year.
One of the big unknowns of #Saints camp, that we now know about, undrafted rookie Emmanuel Butler with a fantastic catch. @FOX8NOLA pic.twitter.com/MvrFRw7Ivb
— Garland Gillen (@garlandgillen) July 28, 2019
Time will tell if Butler will continue to impress the coaching staff, but for a thin receiving group, he seems to show potential to be a contributor. Other young wideouts are showing up too like Simmie Cobbs who went undrafted last year and was a member of the Washington Redskins practice squad throughout the 2018 season.
Other notable additions hoping to gain a spot are fellow undrafted rookies Lil’Jordan Humphrey and LSU track star Cyril Grayson Jr. Grayson has grabbed the coaching staffs attention with his speed. The former track star from LSU never played a down of college football and now catches deep balls in Saints training camp from Drew Brees.
With Meredith’s departure and not many spots left open, unfortunately, all of these guys cannot make the team. Let’s hope this motivates the younger guys to step it up and provide some depth to give New Orleans a reason to keep them as cuts are made.
Another running back?
One of the most surprising early reports from Saints training camp is the search for another running back. Alvin Kamara will be the number one guy; we know that. The Saints did sign his back-up, Latavius Murray, during the offseason after letting former Heisman trophy winner Mark Ingram walk in free agency.
However, behind those two is a ragtag bunch of players whose future with the team are in limbo. Currently, the team has Javorious “Buck” Allen (who has missed the first four days of camp)*, undrafted free agent Devine Ozigbo, and Dwayne Washington.
Since the start of camp, the Saints have hosted three visits with intriguing veterans in search of a new team. First, after surprisingly being cut by the Detroit Lions, Theo Riddick met with the team. This is somewhat surprising as Riddick thrives as a pass-catching back, the same as Kamara. However, as stated earlier, with the lack of pass-catchers, they could easily use him outside or in a T-formation. Over the past four years, no RB has caught more passes than Riddick, with 247 receptions.
The Saints also hosted seven-year veteran Alfred Morris to a visit. However, Morris will no longer be an option after agreeing to a deal with the Dallas Cowboys on July 29th. The team did sign former Redskin RB Rob Kelley on Tuesday. Kelley comes home after being born in New Orleans and playing college football for the Tulane Green Wave. He will bring a very different style to the backfield with his bruising and strong rushing. However, injuries have plagued him the past two years, causing Kelley to play just nine games in that span.
It’s not clear what the Saints’ motive is here. With tight cap space and eight running backs on the roster, resources could be better spent in other areas. Not every back will stay on the team when it’s whittled down to the 53-man squad obviously, but this is something to keep an eye on as training camp continues.
