The picks up from the first three rounds of the 2022 NFL draft, and three premium positions are on the ledger for the New Orleans Saints. After going wide receiver (with Chris Olave), offensive tackle (in Trevor Penning), and now cornerback (through Alontae Taylor) with their selections. But not every player is limited to their first position designation in New Orleans. For head coach Dennis Allen and the Saints, Taylor is expected to start out playing corner, not safety, while making an immediate impact as an impactful special teamer.
“He’s an outstanding special teams player,” Allen said Friday evening. “So in terms of adding some depth to our team, in terms of helping our team, as a core special teams player we really helped our group today.”
There’s no doubt that the Saints see the value in Taylor and how he makes the team better by investing a second-round selection on him. But if he can change the field position game for you in his early career, there’s a massive desire for that in the NFL. Pro Football Reference found that the Saints allowed more punt return yardage (391) than any other team last year, with the second-most punts returned (43) across the league.
That’s despite having a fantastic young punter in Blake Gillikin and an All-Pro gunner in J.T. Gray. If Taylor can help the Saints approach NFL averages in guarding opposing punt returns (the league average was 27.5 returns for 240.6 return yards on the season), then New Orleans’ defense will enjoy even better starting field position after ranking eighth-best (averaging at the opposing 27.45 yard line) in 2021 per Football Outsiders.
With his 4.3 speed, Taylor has been able to make plays with the Volunteers special teams unit including a blocked punt in 2018, with 462 special teams snaps throughout his collegiate career. He should be able to leap into the local lore of impressive special teams aces to wear Saints uniforms. In recent history, Saints players like Gray, Chris Banjo, Justin Hardee Sr., and even Taysom Hill have raised their profiles with the special teams unit in New Orleans. Surely the unit’s coach Darren Rizzi is excited to have Taylor on the roster.
That gives Taylor a way to make an immediate impact while working on his coverage techniques to earn snaps on defense. He’ll have a tall task in unseating Paulson Adebo to start opposite Marshon Lattimore, and a possible move to safety in the future can’t be ruled out. Whether or not he moves around on defense, it seems certain that he’ll help the team as a rookie by getting involved in the kicking game.
