Heading onto the 2017 offseason the easy answer to help fix some the New Orleans Saints woes that occurred this past season is to focus on the defensive line, more specifically the edge rush or end position.
Defensive end Cameron Jordan has been the only true, steady presence at that spot since Junior Galette departed and hasn’t had a complimentary partner in crime in several seasons with the Saints trying to fill the void with Kasim Edabali, Obum Gwacham, and Hau’oli Kikaha in order to generate pressure on the quarterback.
With season ending injuries to Kikaha and Gwacham early on, veterans like Daryl Tapp and Paul Kruger were plugged in with results that were less than spectacular.
Likewise the offense line needed some shuffling with left tackle Terron Armstead plucked out of the lineup by injuries and the question of how much longer can tackle Zach Strief and guard Jahri Evans continue to fight the opposing defensive line and Father Time as well keeps coming up more often than in previous seasons.
And let’s be honest, it has come up a bunch in the past regardless so it’s a constant mini headline when team needs come up for the Saints.
These fronts on both sides of the ball have been tagged as a primary focus for the team if they want to return to form in 2017.
But a position that could be a focus for the Saints heading into free agency and the draft is bolstering their rank in the secondary as well.
I know, I know….
The team appears to be stacked at the position and the only reason that it was exposed was due to injuries to promising players, so we get them back and we should be good.
If you think that then the push to win the sweepstakes from the Washington Redskins for cornerback Josh Norman and the reported attempt to trade for Cleveland Browns corner Joe Haden should give you a new perspective.
There are questions going forward about the durability of promising young contributors like Damian Swann and PJ Williams who have had their two seasons in the NFL cut short, although I know there is the popular narrative concerning Williams that last season head coach Sean Payton used a “rookie redshirt” on him as he dealt with a hamstring issue.
Previous depth was hampered even more when veteran Kyle Wilson was placed on injured reserve in late June followed by the release of one-time starter Keenan Lewis in mid-August.
This left the Saints patch-working the second level of the field with undrafted rookie Ken Crawley, street free agents Sterling Moore and B.W. Webb, and starter Delvin Breaux, who clearly wasn’t himself after dealing with a broken fibula in Week 1 and consequently went on injured reserve after a shoulder injury suffered in a Week 16 game verses the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The safety position was thinned out early on losing Jamarca Sanford and Erik Harris who while weren’t expected to be starters, were expected to provide special teams contributions along with quality depth.
This left defensive coordinator Dennis Allen putting 2016 second-round pick Vonn Bell into the fire with Jarius Byrd and Kenny Vaccaro in the three safety tandem that was designed to keep Byrd from being alone in the wilderness which, along with injuries, made the investment the Saints gave him as a high priced free agent have the word “bust” attached to it.
While Byrd did play what is arguably his best season in a Saints uniform, it wasn’t even close to his tenure that he had with the Buffalo Bills and the debate has been brought up if the team is ready to cut their losses now or give it one more season if he’s willing to restructure his deal.
Like Jordan on the defensive line, Vaccaro has been the steady presence in the secondary and we got to see what it would be like without him as he served a four game suspension for the NFL banned substance Adderall as well as another game with an injury.
Seeing that small view of what it would be without a playmaker and heart of your defense combined with the impending departure be it this season or next with Byrd, safety is a position the Saints would be ill-advised to ignore along with cornerback.
The issue is that the Saints, while emerging from salary cap hell of the past several seasons, can’t afford to slip back into the abyss if they want to remain competitive for the future and be right back at square one.
Looking at the New York Giants who went on a spending spree to fix their defensive unit, which ranked right there with the Saints at the bottom, it can be done if you hit on several key pieces like they did with cornerback Janoris Jenkins or defensive end Olivier Vernon who ironically were favorite targets to land in The Big Easy if only New Orleans would have had the cap space.
Players like Kansas City Chiefs free safety Eric Berry as well as cornerbacks such as the Houston Texans A.J. Bouye, Buffalo Bills Stephen Gilmore, and the L.A. Rams Trumaine Johnson are notable free agents in a few months along with New England Patriots corner Logan Ryan who has quietly been a consistent player and caught my attention along with others in Saturday night’s Divisional Playoff game against the Houston Texans.
But the piper will literally get paid for these players going into free agency with Spotrac.com estimating the market value of players like Berry and the others such as Johnson at anywhere close to $10 million per year to $14 million per year respectively.
Ryan was not given a market value but you can believe that he will want to be paid accordingly like the others and understandably it makes the front office as well as Saints fans a little gun-shy at forking over a huge payday that could very well backfire on them like it’s done in the past.
Getting a contributor in the secondary from the draft is another option, though it hasn’t been kind to the Saints either in recent memory due to poor scouting, lack of picks being mortgaged from trades/Bountygate punishment, and most importantly a lack of development in players that were long shots to begin with.
The name Stanley Jean-Baptiste ring a bell for anyone?
But 2016 marked what appears to be a change in philosophy and success for the team in regards to player selection and this upcoming draft would provide a chance especially in the early rounds to provide a new change of culture in the secondary.
Safeties such as Ohio State’s Malik Hooker or Washington’s Bubba Baker are just a few of the top prospects at that position that could be available in the first few rounds though Hooker continues to climb the first round board at a quick rate.
Corners that have been mocked to the Saints in the past month include Alabama’s Marlon Humphrey and Iowa’s Desmond King with King actually being looked at as better suited to play safety in the NFL as compared to corner, a point that Bleacher Report’s draft analyst Matt Miller made.
Miller also made mention that this is a deep edge rusher class in the upcoming draft so if the Saints were so inclined they could go for either corner or safety early in the first round if their player at that position was available and grab an edge rusher in the second round such as Alabama’s Ryan Anderson or Florida State’s DeMarcus Walker.
Of course predicting what the Saints will do in either free agency or the draft is pretty much like guessing the weather in Louisiana so if or even when they could decide to address the secondary is something we’ll have to wait and see on heading into the infancy of the 2017 offseason.
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