With the draft a little over a week away, the Saints signed free agent linebacker Anthony Waters. With only 4 picks in the upcoming draft and team officials clearly in full on draft mode, this is an interesting move. The former Clemson star was injured most of his senior year with a torn ACL after leading the ACC in tackles his junior year. He still managed to get drafted in the 3rd round by San Diego based on his upside but never panned out due mostly to injury setbacks. I’m not going to talk about his stats with San Diego because you can research that pretty easily and it’s clear he did close to nothing. While he’s likely just a camp body, it does tell us two things: 1. We shouldn’t expect the Saints to draft a linebacker with one of their 4 picks in the draft (which means they feel comfortable with the current crop) and 2. Jonathan Vilma‘s primary backup at MLB isn’t locked up by any means.
The Saints now carry 4 Mike Backers: Vilma, Mark Simoneau, Marvin Mitchell and Anthony Waters. It remains to be seen if Simoneau will stay due to his fairly significant salary and his last season being spent almost entirely on IR. If he ends up getting cut due to training camp struggles, Waters could give Mitchell a run for his money.
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