 We're going to bring on a very loyal Saints fan and that is Sean Landry making his debut on Time 2 Football. Sean, I appreciate you joining us for this episode of Time 2 Football. We got to talk about the NFL draft and preferably we got to be talking about the Saints before we get into the specifics as far as like the names and who you guys got. If you had to give just a grade right now for the Saints and their NFL draft, what would it be? Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Houdat represent very strong, very proud for all those loyal members of Houdat Nation. The great I'd give them honestly, and I'm going to be blunt, I'm going to give them a C minus. The reason why I'm giving them a C minus is just because, you know, we lost so much talent after the season. And obviously with trying to get under the cap grant, we were experiencing a pandemic like many teams were. You know, we had a lot of let a lot of good talent go, you know, the cherry Hendrix of the world, the Genors Jenkins of the world, manual Sanders. So there were so many different holes that we could have filled. And I felt like based from when I was reading all the mock drafts leading up to last Thursday corner, I felt like was the top need. And actually the day of the draft, I was reading reports that we were going to try to work our way up into the top 10. And, you know, just very, very small whispers of it. And then load and behold, you know, draft draft night goes on. You see, we said we sit at 28. So, you know, we didn't draft a corner to the third round, I believe. And so, you know, sometimes getting the guys in the later rounds actually pay bigger dividends than those you draft in the first round. And so I'd give us a D just our C minus rather going into that D grading area just because I felt like we could have done more. The Saints should have done more and made bold moves just because a lot of teams are making bold moves. You know, going into the offseason corner, the draft preparations, things of nature, because, you know, a lot of teams have this must win now mentality. Not, you know, we can't just wait and rebuild three, four years and expect to achieve greatness. So the great I'd give them, it would be about a C minus, but I like some of the picks we got. You know, obviously the Pete Warner pick, you know, that goes back to Sean like an Ohio State players. So, you know, there are, there are some ties to that, but I'd give them a C minus if I had to be honest with you. Wow. Very blunt. And I like that because that shows that you're a little bit unbiased and you're just seeing it how it is. And kind of talking about the draft picks and who you specifically pick, the New Orleans Saints organization, I think first off, we have to talk about the first round pick because that caught a lot of people off guard. Peyton Turner, what was up with that? So that surprised me too, but then again, it didn't surprise me. You know, if I had to choose at the end of the off season this year, who to keep and who to cut. I really was hoping we would keep Trey Hendrickson just because he was an unnatural talent that nobody knew when he was coming out of the 2017 draft. You know, when we had that great draft class of him and Kamara to name a few. And so I feel like, again, we didn't move up in the top 10. I was hoping we would draft the corner. When I learned that JC Horne's dad is former St. Great, Joe Horne. I was like, cool, that'd be awesome to have his kid come home and play for his dad's old club. So I was really hoping we would get a corner. But when we drafted Peyton Turner, the same thing we touched on earlier in the week was what was up with that. And I felt like for two reasons, you know, the first thing is corner was our biggest need. But the second reason is you extended Marcus Davenport's fifth year option, which I hate to say it. I kind of feel like he's leaning more a little towards that bust title just because he can't stay healthy. And he really hasn't been able to push off the line, so to speak. So hopefully Peyton, his rotational player, that's probably what he'll end up doing to start the year or start his career. Rather be that rotational player. But then I'm hearing whispers that they're going to try to build him long term, you know, because eventually Cam Jordan's greatness is going to have to come to an end as well. So I'm a little surprised by the pick. But then again, you know, only time will tell whether or not he's going to be a really great saint for many years to come. Or he's going to be one of those guys that's going to be out of the door in two to three years. Yeah, so it makes a lot of sense when you put in perspective as far as Trey Hendrickson, they lost the Bengals. Cam Jordan, obviously, like you said, can't be great forever. Marcus Davenport as well is, you know, like you said, could be leaning towards that bust category, which is kind of unfortunate because they traded up for him. So do you feel like that they chose a defensive end like Peyton Turner? Because they were leaning towards like the defensive line was going in that direction. And if so, why would you choose Peyton Turner over maybe someone like Gregory Russo, who was highly touted as a better defensive end or a better edge rusher and many mock drafts? Yeah, I know you had Penn State, I can't remember his first name, his last name is like Away. Jason Oway is our first pick just because, I mean, Sean likes Draft and Guys, him and Mickey both like Draft and Guys, you can get after the quarterback. You've seen it in years past with David on Yamada. You've seen it with Cam Jordan. You've seen it with Sheldon Rankins, especially when we like knocking Matt Ryan on his Keister every now and then. But you know, I don't know what persuaded them rather to draft him. I think going into the draft, he was the 106th best player on the board. And so maybe they felt like other teams would go up there and snag him before they did. And maybe that's why they got him with the first overall pick as opposed to waiting in the later rounds and getting him then. But again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier. You know, if Marcus Davenport doesn't pan out this year and obviously Cam Jordan is getting a little bit up there in age, I mean, you're going to have to get a guy that has that speed and is going to be able to get the quarterback off his speed every now and then. But then I also know that he's had injury concerns at Houston in his college career. So again, only time will tell whether or not he's going to be a great for a long time or again, he's going to be out in a couple of years like most players are. And a player that we may have to see that could also be a great or maybe out of the league in a few years would be Ian Book. Taken by the Saints. Now a lot of people were talking about, okay, Drew Brees retired, bringing a quarterback, draft a quarterback, Sean talking about Ian Book. Well, I kind of feel like he may end up being the steel in the second tier of quarterbacks. So I know he's kind of considered maybe the third tier, third and fourth tier, but I really felt like he maybe should have gone earlier. I don't have a whole lot of faith in Kellan Mon. I don't have a whole lot of faith in Kyle Trask. I mean, they linked us to drafting Kyle Trask in the later rounds and I think he's going to be a glorified backup. I really don't think he'll be a starter out there in Tampa. But going back to Ian Book, so I actually, right before you had me on, I actually did a little bit compare and contrast because you know Ian Book because he all the time winning his quarterback in Notre Dame history. And I compared him to another Notre Dame great Brady Quinn who, you know, back in 07, Brady was supposed to be the top five pick. Obviously we saw he fell all the way to the lower 20s and Cleveland brought him home, which he never really translated his game at the pro level, excuse me. So with Ian, you know, I compared his stats to Brady's and he had both of both Brady and Ian had similar stats their junior year of college at Notre Dame. But Ian, on the other hand, had an overall best percentage than Brady. Brady had a 134 quarterback rating through four years at Notre Dame whereas Ian had 147 quarterback rating at all four years at Notre Dame. He's got flashy feet. He can make plays outside of the pocket, which if you've known now that's a trend in the NFL. He's got six foot less quarterback, so he's built similarly to Drew's style. So, but we've shown time and time again, you know, with Teddy and with Tayson that Sean can make something out of nothing and he can really help bring out the full potential in quarterbacks that a lot of teams may or may not be familiar with. So again, only time will tell. I think he'll he'll be a third string going this year. You know, obviously it's going to be James James and Tayson. In the offseason competing for the starting role, whoever loses that battle will be the backup. But we all know that Sean likes to incorporate, taste them in various packages. So Ian may move up to a backup role at that point. But again, only time will tell whether or not he can be great. I mean, look at Tom, for example, Tom went in the sixth round and 20 years later and seven Super Bowls, you know, is now one of the top three. And 20 years later and seven Super Bowls, you know, is now one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. So again, it goes back to the draft. You know, you find you find a lot of rarity in the later rounds and those oftentimes pay huge dividends than quarterbacks should draft in the first round. I mean, you've you've seen it so far with Kyler and with Lamar and to Sean, but you look at the guys like the Sam Donalds of the world, the Josh Rosens of the world, the Mr. Biskies of the world, you know, they haven't panned out as great as quarterbacks in the later rounds, you know, like Garoppolo, for example, when he's healthy to really show you what you have going forward in the long run. And if Ian Book is their guy, that's their guy. That's a prerogative that they feel like, like you said, is going to be a third string. Is he going to move up into backup role? Taysum Hill is going to work in different packages. But it's an interesting decision from Sean Payton in the whole Saints organization that at the second round pick that they had, they took Pete Werner, which good player. But then later on, you had Kyle Trask and taken by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the end of that round. Then you had Kellan Mann, you had Davis Mills, and all these other quarterbacks were being taken. Do you feel like that the Saints at that point were like, oh man, we regret not taking Kyle Trask, who there was rumors out there that he was very well liked by the New Orleans Saints. Davis Mills and Kellan Mann that many other analysts ranked higher than Ian Book. Yeah. Well, in truth, all three of those guys were on our mock drafts leading up to last week. But I just kind of feel, you know, Kyle had one good year at Florida and that's no knock on him as a professional athlete. I'm sure he'll do well in the NFL, but you look at him and I talked to a friend of mine the other day, I said, you know, look at him in the cotton bowl. He did really well throughout his full year. And granted, it was a weird 2020 was a weird year for all college teams. Florida had a really good year last year and that's why he was able to statistically speaking do very well. But leading up to the cotton bowl, you take away Kyle, you take away Cadarius, Tony, you take away your starting running back and what are you? He really couldn't make the other guys around him better. He couldn't elevate the other guys around him better. And just that's just for an example. I really didn't expect us to take a quarterback. You know, honestly, Sean has said ever since Drew announced he was, he wasn't coming back that he felt good with Taysum and James going forward. He felt like both guys had a conviction about them to really take the reins and really elevate the Saints to the next level that we've been missing the last four years in the post season. But then again, maybe Ian, maybe there was something about Ian that caused him to not go earlier than the fourth round. But I really hope he does well. I really like to see what he does. I definitely will tell you what to make the quarterback competition interesting next year because Taysum and James were on one-year proven deals this year. So if both guys don't really spark and excitement within the fan base, within the organization, and James ends up going elsewhere next year and Taysum does the same, you could be looking at Ian's book being the starter moving forward. But again, only time will tell. It's really too early to crown him in his success without seeing how he's going to do when the lights are bright and especially in preseason as well, how he's going to react when he's got bigger, stronger, faster guys coming after him as opposed to those in college. Well, only time will tell. Maybe Sean Payton pulls something together and gets that whole roster back to glory in the playoffs again. But Sean, appreciate your insight and thank you so much for joining us for the show and we hope to have you for many more episodes in the future. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. And like I said, I look forward to being on here if given another shot at it. And that was Sean Landry giving us his take on the New Orleans Saints and their draft picks.