When the Saints traded up to draft former LSU defensive tackle Al Woods in the 4th round of this year’s draft, the misfire was one of significance. This is what Sean Payton had to say about Woods:
“You’re hopeful for all your draft picks. I think the mistake is maybe hanging on to them or not recognizing some of the deficiencies and all of a sudden you go two or three years into that. He did some things on a positive note that were encouraging and yet ultimately we didn’t feel confident enough with where he was at right now and we went a different direction. We’ve tried to hold true and really evaluate the players once they get here and he was an example of that.”
It’s a given that some pickups work out, whereas others don’t. For every free agent pickup like Drew Brees and Joe Horn, there’s more than double the Heath Shulers and Albert Connells. Most Saints fans will remember those last two names as some of the more horrific free agency signings in team history. Similarly, for every draft that lands the low risk and high return of players like Marques Colston and Pierre Thomas, there’s the high draft picks like Jonathan Sullivan that are a complete disaster. You have to respect the team’s philosophy that they’ve always stayed true to: regardless of where a guy came from, what his salary is, or how he was acquired, the coaching staff is committed to keeping the best 53 players. With that said, the Saints wasted a 4th round pick on Al Woods this year, and another pick to get an opportunity to move up in this past draft to get him. The fact that the team passed on even adding him to the practice squad means that the Saints’ scouting team had an epic dropping of the ball in their evaluation of Woods. At that point in the 4th round, you have to figure there were a number of players out there that could have helped this team. That’s all hindsight now, and perhaps the fault falls with Woods more than anyone, but the way the whole situation played out is very disappointing. Obviously I wanted Woods to work out being a local boy from LSU, maybe more so than another player more deserving that was better from elsewhere; but the Saints valuing him as worth trading up in the 4th round for to not even worthy of a practice squad spot is a dramatic change based on a short body of work. I’m not going to belabor this point because every team has homeruns and strikeouts in their evaluation of players, and this current Saints’ regime has had many more homeruns than the latter. That said, the Al Woods pickup was a pretty major strikeout. We spend a lot of time praising the Saints for the great job they do identifying terrific players, but in this case the Saints completely blew it.
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