Speaker 1: Welcome in to the New Orleans Saints Podcast, present a
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Speaker 1: that cover the NFL on a daily basis. The New
Speaker 1: Orleans Saints Podcast starts right now. Here's your host, Aaron Summers.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the New Orleans Saints Podcast. Aaron Summers here
Speaker 2: back again with some more NFC South Draft previews. Also
Speaker 2: getting caught up on what they did during the offseason
Speaker 2: leading up to the draft, because of course that may
Speaker 2: affect some of their needs and players that they're looking for.
Speaker 2: We've previewed the Atlanta Falcons on Monday, We're looking at
Speaker 2: the Carolina Panthers today, and then on Friday, we are
Speaker 2: going to get into things with the Tampa Bay Bucks.
Speaker 2: For the Panthers today, they do pick in that eighth
Speaker 2: spot first round, right before the Saints do at number nine,
Speaker 2: could have an effect on who's available for the Saints,
Speaker 2: and what's happening with the Saints could have an effect
Speaker 2: on what the Panthers do with their pick. So a
Speaker 2: lot to get into here, and for that reason, I
Speaker 2: am bringing in the Panthers radio play by play voice
Speaker 2: of the Carolina Panthers Aniche Shiraff to help break things
Speaker 2: down with me. Anish, Thank you so much for joining
Speaker 2: me on the New Orleans Saints podcast. It's always good
Speaker 2: to see you and catch up. Off season is here,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem like much of an off season.
Speaker 2: We've both been really busy as we're gearing up for
Speaker 2: the draft here. But how are things going for you?
Speaker 3: It's just been topsy turvy. It's spinning, but I mean
Speaker 3: that in the best possible way. With baseball and college
Speaker 3: basketball being done, a little bit of lacrosse, college baseball,
Speaker 3: and you know, obviously the NFL Draft right around the corner.
Speaker 3: Exciting time, especially given how the Panthers finished last season,
Speaker 3: what they were able to do in free agency, and
Speaker 3: now you're kind of looking for that final layer of
Speaker 3: the roster before you get into camp and certainly before
Speaker 3: you get into the summer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking at what they did last season, saw a
Speaker 2: new level of Bryce Young at quarterback. So same things
Speaker 2: seem pretty solid there. Offense looks good. Defense might be
Speaker 2: the side of the ball that we're looking to continue
Speaker 2: to bolster here through the draft.
Speaker 3: What are you.
Speaker 2: Thinking as far as what the needs are coming out
Speaker 2: of free agency and last season.
Speaker 3: Well, what they were able to do last year. If
Speaker 3: you go back, they needed to shore up the offensive
Speaker 3: line a year ago, and they went out and they
Speaker 3: signed Robert Hunt, who you guys know, having played his
Speaker 3: college ball in Louisiana. They went out and got another
Speaker 3: Louisiana guy, former LSU product in Damian Lewis, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, it made a huge difference. The Panthers
Speaker 3: went from an offensive line that didn't have a ton
Speaker 3: of depth the year before that was ravaged by injuries
Speaker 3: to this past season. It was a top ten unit.
Speaker 3: They were able to run the ball. Touba Hubbard had
Speaker 3: his best season and the bryce that we saw the
Speaker 3: second half and guys probably remember and it's painful. He
Speaker 3: started with that win against the Saints and that was
Speaker 3: really the turn, that was the pivot point in his
Speaker 3: brief two year career. He then beats the Giants, they
Speaker 3: go into a bye week, everybody is still in a
Speaker 3: half measure mode. Is this for real? Is it a mirage?
Speaker 3: And then he goes to Tote with Patrick Mahomes almost
Speaker 3: beats Philly and the way he ended the season with
Speaker 3: the five touchdown game against Atlanta, people feel really good
Speaker 3: about Bryce Young going into twenty twenty five, could they
Speaker 3: use another skill player. I think you can make a
Speaker 3: case that there's maybe a need for another wide receiver
Speaker 3: or a pass catching tight end. But what they did
Speaker 3: last year was kind of go all in on offense,
Speaker 3: and they knew that they were gonna be a little
Speaker 3: thin on defense. And when you're thin going into the year,
Speaker 3: then you have injuries the way the Panthers did first
Speaker 3: game of the year against the Saints. You lose Derek Brown.
Speaker 3: He's the best player on the team. That was crippling.
Speaker 3: They were never really the same upfront. So this offseason
Speaker 3: they treated it much like they treated the old line
Speaker 3: last offseason. They went out and they tried to get
Speaker 3: Milton Armstrong, couldn't get him. But thereon Williams right, the
Speaker 3: guy from Philly. But they did go out and they
Speaker 3: got Bobby Brown, a guy who's young and still has
Speaker 3: some pretty good upside. You get Derek Brown healthy coming back.
Speaker 3: Ashawn Robinson is back. Now. They wanted to address the
Speaker 3: pass rush, so you bring back Clowney and wantam Now
Speaker 3: add Turk Wharton from the Chiefs. You go and add
Speaker 3: Pat Jones coming over from the Vikings. So you've added
Speaker 3: some pieces. You go get morg the safety from the Raiders.
Speaker 3: So they put themselves in a position where, yes, defense
Speaker 3: clearly is still going to be the need, but they
Speaker 3: can go get the best available player or even maneuver
Speaker 3: and possibly trade that eighth overall pick. They've given them
Speaker 3: selves options by getting deeper through free agency defense.
Speaker 2: You mentioned kind of building that defensive line through free agency.
Speaker 2: The first pick, though I've seen in a lot of
Speaker 2: these mock drafts for the Panthers, is still on the
Speaker 2: line as an edge that seems like a lot of
Speaker 2: teams are after them, and there's a lot of good
Speaker 2: ones in this draft. It's a very deep position, which
Speaker 2: is good. The Panthers pick at eighth, right before the Saints.
Speaker 2: So in the draft mock drafts that you've seen names
Speaker 2: that have been popping up, do you think they're going
Speaker 2: to go with an edge or are they going to
Speaker 2: kind of look in more into the secondary to start
Speaker 2: things off?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so much of it will depend on
Speaker 3: what happens one through seven. Right. If a Mason Graham
Speaker 3: is available, boy, doesn't that look tempting. You can get
Speaker 3: a d lineman like that, you pair him with Derek
Speaker 3: Brown and Ayshawn Robinson and Bobby Brown All of a sudden,
Speaker 3: that's a pretty formidable defensive front in a coach of
Speaker 3: Arrow's three to four defense. Would an abdull Carter get
Speaker 3: to eight? I would highly doubt it. But if he's there,
Speaker 3: that's got to be tantalizing. And then you know, you
Speaker 3: look at the Georgia guys, namely Jalen Walker, whose name
Speaker 3: has been associated with that eighth pick quite a bit.
Speaker 3: Just the pedigree of the Georgia defensive players going into
Speaker 3: the draft and being successful in the NFL these last
Speaker 3: few years. Look no further than you're defending Super Bowl
Speaker 3: champions of the Eagles. I mean, how many Georgia guys
Speaker 3: were on their defense. And Walker's unique because not only
Speaker 3: can he rush the passer and he could play the
Speaker 3: edge for you, he's a pretty good off ball linebacker
Speaker 3: and he's pretty strong in run support, and a lot
Speaker 3: of scouts see that as his strength right now and
Speaker 3: almost see the edge rusher potential is something that is developing,
Speaker 3: still a little raw and on polished, but certainly it's there.
Speaker 3: And you know, some of the comps that I've heard,
Speaker 3: one is Frankie Louvu, who you guys saw when he
Speaker 3: played for the Panthers. That guy was a human tempest.
Speaker 3: And Walker is a movable chess piece in that defense. Again,
Speaker 3: if he's there, i'd imagine he's going to be an
Speaker 3: option for Dan Morgan.
Speaker 2: After that. I've seen a lot of safety as a
Speaker 2: position that pops later in the draft. You have nine
Speaker 2: picks number eight and then second round it's fifty seven,
Speaker 2: and he kind of scattered through the rest of the
Speaker 2: draft from there. Safety secondary, How big of a need
Speaker 2: do you feel like that is?
Speaker 3: Well, again, they're not very deep there. So they re
Speaker 3: signed j C. Horn, their cornerback, the son of Joe Horn.
Speaker 3: He got a massive deal to stay with Carolina. They
Speaker 3: re signed Mike Jackson, who had a pretty strong year.
Speaker 3: They got him from Seattle for a seventh round pick.
Speaker 3: Not a ton of depth behind those guys at corner.
Speaker 3: And then the safety room's been totally rebuilt. They went
Speaker 3: and got Mooring from the Raiders, who's really good against
Speaker 3: the run. And then right now after that, you got
Speaker 3: Demani Richardson, who was an undrafted free agent last year,
Speaker 3: had a couple of strong games when he started, but again,
Speaker 3: young guy not a ton of experience. They brought Nick
Speaker 3: Scott back. He was up and down last year. I
Speaker 3: think they view him more, at least now, as a
Speaker 3: special teams piece. And you know, a guy who could
Speaker 3: start at a pinch, but that is in need. And
Speaker 3: what's unique is the NFL has sort of devalued the
Speaker 3: safety position where you can't play that position the way
Speaker 3: a Ronnie Lott or a Jack Tatum or a Steve
Speaker 3: at Water or even a John Lynch played that position.
Speaker 3: Otherwise you're just gonna get fined left and right, maybe
Speaker 3: suspended and penalized a whole lot. So I think what
Speaker 3: the Panthers would like as a ballhawk back there. They
Speaker 3: haven't had that ballhawking safety in a few years. And
Speaker 3: you know there's names out there. You get Malachi Starks,
Speaker 3: another Georgia guy, Xavier Watts, who people saw at Notre Dame.
Speaker 3: I think he had double digit interceptions over the last
Speaker 3: two years. So there are some options there. The question
Speaker 3: is when do you take them. Do you take them
Speaker 3: early second round? Is that too early? Or can you
Speaker 3: wait and take a safety and get a good one later.
Speaker 2: It's second season under head coach Dave Canals, so you
Speaker 2: have an idea of what he likes players, and the
Speaker 2: front office obviously came in at the same time. What's
Speaker 2: that dynamic, like, how much, say, does Canals have in
Speaker 2: who he thinks they should draft or the positions that
Speaker 2: he feel is needed.
Speaker 3: Well, the buzzword a year ago was alignment general manager, head, coach,
Speaker 3: ownership all the way down. And there's a stream of
Speaker 3: information and a flow of information that moves both ways.
Speaker 3: So certainly Dave has a lot of input. He has
Speaker 3: a long relationship with Dan Morgan going back to their
Speaker 3: days in Seattle, so they're very much aligned in terms
Speaker 3: of what fits, what do we need, what can we get,
Speaker 3: what makes sense given the constraints of the salary cap
Speaker 3: in the NFL. I think the biggest benefit of having
Speaker 3: Dave and his staff back mostly intact for year two
Speaker 3: is going to be to the offense in Bryce Young.
Speaker 3: Dave Canalis is also the offensive coordinator. Essentially, he's the
Speaker 3: play caller, so Bryce, for the first time in his
Speaker 3: pro career, will have that continuity from one offseason to
Speaker 3: the next. And if we've learned anything about him, this
Speaker 3: kid is a fast learner. And if we saw the
Speaker 3: strides he made in the second half. I think it's
Speaker 3: exciting to see what he can do now with a
Speaker 3: full offseason in the same offense, not having to learn
Speaker 3: a new language all over again.
Speaker 2: We might not bury the lead here, But how much
Speaker 2: is the Panthers draft dependent on what we've been hearing
Speaker 2: about the Saints and what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that,
Speaker 3: because even though the Panthers are not in the market
Speaker 3: for a quarterback, if the Saints are, and with New
Speaker 3: Orleans holding the ninth pick overall, and even if there's
Speaker 3: a team that picks after the Saints that might be
Speaker 3: interested in a quarterback, well, now probably have to move
Speaker 3: up at least to nine, probably into the top eight
Speaker 3: to go get a quarterback. I think there's still this
Speaker 3: prevailing sentiment that cam Ward is going to go in
Speaker 3: the top seven picks. You know, Shador Sanders. We're kind
Speaker 3: of saying projections all over the place. I still think
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, with Tennessee, with the Giants,
Speaker 3: some of the teams picking in the top seven, I
Speaker 3: still think Shadoor Sanders finds himself on one of those teams. Now,
Speaker 3: if he's off the board before the Saints pick. Are
Speaker 3: they going to trade up to go get a Jackson Dart.
Speaker 3: Is somebody else going to leapfrog the Saints and try
Speaker 3: to move up to go get a Jackson Dart, maybe
Speaker 3: even Shador Sanders, And all of a sudden, that eighth
Speaker 3: pick now for the Panthers becomes prime real estate. Where
Speaker 3: let's say you do decide to move down, and you
Speaker 3: do decide to trade the pick. Teams that generally are
Speaker 3: trading up with the intention of drafting a quarterback will
Speaker 3: give you more draft capital for that pick.
Speaker 2: It's going to be really interesting to see how things
Speaker 2: shake out because I remember being at the combine and
Speaker 2: if dul Carter stood up there and said, I am
Speaker 2: the best player in this draft and I should go
Speaker 2: number one, and I just don't know if that's going
Speaker 2: to be what happens. He is definitely talented, but there
Speaker 2: are a lot of teams out here who do need quarterbacks.
Speaker 2: You know, Tyler Schuck from Louisville has been climbing up
Speaker 2: the board as well over the past couple of days.
Speaker 2: So it's going to be a lot of movement, I
Speaker 2: feel like, and a lot of surprises.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Shuck to me is a real interesting case
Speaker 3: because he was in college forever. I think he's twenty five,
Speaker 3: twenty six years old. He's got a pretty lengthy injury history.
Speaker 3: So is that a guy that you're going to mortgage
Speaker 3: your first round pick on to go get If you're
Speaker 3: the Saints and you're looking at Tyler Shuck, does that
Speaker 3: make sense given that you know, Derek Carr hasn't exactly
Speaker 3: been a poster child of health in who's his two
Speaker 3: years with New Orleans and now, well, you know, might
Speaker 3: be dealing with something. I feel like we don't quite
Speaker 3: know the whole story there, but to me, there's you know,
Speaker 3: a couple of the guys too, Jalen Milroe at Alabama.
Speaker 3: I heard some rumblings at the combine where, you know,
Speaker 3: a couple of people were saying, don't be surprised if
Speaker 3: somebody gets enamored by his workout, because physically he can
Speaker 3: do a lot of the things that Lamar Jackson does
Speaker 3: and it's a copycat league. Now, does that mean he's
Speaker 3: going to be the next Lamar Jackson? The odds are
Speaker 3: probably slim, but it takes one team to believe that, Hey,
Speaker 3: is there a spot where we can go get a
Speaker 3: Jalen Milroe and maybe develop him for a year. He
Speaker 3: sits for a year. And now if you have even
Speaker 3: Lamar Light, he got a top ten quarterback in the NFL.
Speaker 3: So you know, those things are interesting. And the other
Speaker 3: thing is, you know, is there is a little bit
Speaker 3: of a misinformation war that goes on and it ram
Speaker 3: especially now you know, you start to listen to the
Speaker 3: signal and the noise and decipher what's what. They're teams
Speaker 3: and agents putting things out with a purpose and they're
Speaker 3: hoping for people like us to pick up on it
Speaker 3: and tweet it and post it and go on TV
Speaker 3: and talk about it and say, hey, this guy Tyler Schuck,
Speaker 3: this guy his draft stock is going up and down.
Speaker 3: And a lot of these are smoke screens. A lot
Speaker 3: of these are to throw other teams off the set,
Speaker 3: and you got to really decipher what's real and what's not.
Speaker 2: Right now, I think it's always so funny because there's
Speaker 2: fifty players that are getting drafted in the top ten,
Speaker 2: you know, and these agents are sure of it and
Speaker 2: you better go out and get them. And it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: let's think about this. I don't think the math adds
Speaker 2: up here. Looking at the NFC South, I feel like
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, everybody was trying to solidify
Speaker 2: their quarterback position and really looking at their offense. This
Speaker 2: year seems like every team is really trying to make
Speaker 2: their defense better across the board. The Falcons, the Bucks
Speaker 2: like that is the area they need to get better,
Speaker 2: and the Saints honestly as well. So it's going to
Speaker 2: be an interesting year in the division. How do you
Speaker 2: think things are going to shake out?
Speaker 3: You know, it's wild because for a while, you had
Speaker 3: Drew Brees in New Orleans. You had those years where
Speaker 3: Tom Brady was in Tampa and Matt Ryan Cam Newton.
Speaker 3: You really had some established quarterbacks in the ANFC South.
Speaker 3: And you know, age catches up to everybody. Cam is
Speaker 3: out of the league, Matt Ryan retires, Breeze retires, Brady
Speaker 3: retired for good, I hope, and now everyone's kind of
Speaker 3: searching for that next guy. We saw what the Falcons
Speaker 3: did last year taking Pennix. The Panthers traded up to
Speaker 3: number one to go get Bryce Young. The Bucks were
Speaker 3: able to resurrect Baker Mayfield's career. The Saints were hoping
Speaker 3: that Derek Carr would be maybe an answer that seems murky,
Speaker 3: But this division is still very open. The Saints are
Speaker 3: a team you mentioned changes on defense, they were getting
Speaker 3: older on defense. I think they're at a bit of
Speaker 3: a crossroads. Tampa is a team they're getting older as well.
Speaker 3: Atlanta's got a really great young corps of offensive players. Defensively,
Speaker 3: we've been talking about the Falcons potentially taking a pass
Speaker 3: rusher in the first round for I don't know how
Speaker 3: many years they never do, and then you know the Panthers,
Speaker 3: since they drafted Bryce Young, you have kind of been
Speaker 3: in rebuild, retool mode. And this kind of seems like
Speaker 3: a year for Carolina with what they've been able to
Speaker 3: do in free agency and now with another draft where
Speaker 3: they might have a chance to compete for a division title.
Speaker 3: So I think everybody's sort of in that same boat
Speaker 3: where all four teams probably look at the season and go, yeah,
Speaker 3: we can win this division.
Speaker 2: Kind of seems like that's how it's been for the
Speaker 2: past couple of years here, where everyone's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: there for the taking, but nobody goes out and takes it.
Speaker 2: So maybe this year somebody will come on, start strong
Speaker 2: and take over the division. We'll see what happens, But
Speaker 2: thank you so much for giving me the insight on
Speaker 2: the Panthers. Got to know everything about our opponents, make
Speaker 2: sure that we're making the better moves when it gets
Speaker 2: to the draft. So I appreciate it and we'll see
Speaker 2: you here down the line pretty soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you want to trade up for Tyler Shuck,
Speaker 3: I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Of course, thanks Adiche You got it a lot to
Speaker 2: keep track of as the NFL Draft approaches, first round
Speaker 2: April twenty fourth, second and third April twenty fifth, and
Speaker 2: then Day three, rounds four through seven on April twenty six.
Speaker 2: It all goes down just next week, so make sure
Speaker 2: you're getting a look at all those mock drafts, familiarizing
Speaker 2: yourself with the names, and of course listening to our
Speaker 2: podcast right here on New Orleans Saints dot com or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your pods. Friday, it is the Bucks,
Speaker 2: they're up, so we're gonna get to know everything we
Speaker 2: need to know about the last NFC South team.
Speaker 1: Talk to you then, thanks for listening to the New
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