How the national media stacks up the Saints vs. the rest of NFC South in the 2017 Draft

Most Saints fans left the 2017 NFL Draft a combination of excited and frustrated with the class the Saints brought in. Many fans wanted to see a pass rusher taken sooner, but it’s hard to not get excited about Marshon Lattimore falling to the Saints at 11 combined with imagining Alvin Kamara in the offense. I think you’ll be generally impressed with how they fared from an unbiased perspective, though. Granted, we won’t know how good this class is until three or four years from now when these guys perform on the field… but the re-enforcement now doesn’t hurt in getting us excited about the upcoming season.

Here’s how the Saints graded out on various sites:

Of course, because this is such a guessing game, the rankings vary. If you aggregate the NFC South rankings (1-4 points, 4 being the worst), the averages came out like this:

1. Bucs: 1.44 (1st in 6)
2. Saints: 2.22 (1st in 4)
3. Panthers: 2.22 (1st in 2)
4. Falcons: 3.33 (last in 6)

So the Bucs were the clear winner – and I agree with that. The Saints were a bit all over the place, with really favorable reviews from NFL.com, USA Today, SB Nation and SI.com specifically. Walter Football and Rotoworld were harsher on the Saints. The Panthers I would say had a draft that was more generally viewed as solid (never great or poor), so while their average was the same as the Saints, they got less 1st place finishes. The general view was the Falcons had by far the worst draft in the NFC South, though CBS (Prisco, of course) gave them a favorable grade.

Funny, before doing all this I would have told you the Bucs had the best class in the division. I’d rate the Saints as second, Panthers third and the Falcons a distant last. Who knows if I end up being right, but for now the national media seems to agree.