The New Orleans Saints put a pin in their three-day mandatory minicamp on Thursday, and we’ve got the latest on the defensive backs, quarterbacks, and everyone in-between. Get up to speed:
I think everyone had a little bit of fatigue today. It looked like it was going to rain, you could feel the humidity in the air. But a lot of the plays were happening far away from where the media was stationed. Taysom Hill was working with the quarterbacks today doing some situational stuff in 11-on-11 drills. It looks like his mechanics are better than they have been.
It’s been interesting to see them switch Hill off every day with the quarterbacks and skills positions. There was a point today where he threw an incompletion to Keith Kirkwood, he yelled at Kirkwood to run it back. It was good to see that mentality from Hill and the quarterbacks today. What stuck out to me the most in team drills was how Hill was running with the quarterbacks again, he ran the offense well but his accuracy is still just not there.
The quarterbacks were spending a lot of one-on-one time with Michael Thomas again today, it looked like he was working on his initial footwork again, to the point where he was counting his steps. You’re so used to him being able to jump and cut. They were working in the end zone where he’d run a few steps, then cut to the boundary and cut backwards. It was more of those mental reps of taking those steps slowly.
It reminded me of talking with Alontae Taylor’s trainer and how they kind of trained him to become a defensive back after playing receiver in high school. I remembered him saying “You have to walk before you can run.” And it looked like that’s what Thomas was doing today. You can just tell that he and Derek Carr have a natural rapport, going back and forth and making some slight adjustments. It really seems like, to quote Derek Carr, “They’re speaking the same language.” I remember hearing at what point Carr said “Imagine that you beat him,” so they’re really honing that situational work but they’re working on what it looks like if it’s a tighter window.
It was another day where, in the first set of team drills, Alontae Taylor was with the ones and he mirrored Juwan Johnson really well in coverage. Then Paulson Adebo went in during end zone drills, I don’t remember who he was covering, but he broke up the pass on a really nice job with his timing and hand placement to disrupt the throw. And then Taylor went against Johnson, who caught it, but he pushed Johnson out and it could have gone out of bounds before Johnson’s feet went down. I’m not a referee.
Ugo Amadi had second-team in the slot. I noticed there were a lot of linebackers in coverage today, No. 58, Anfernee Orji, he was in coverage against Bryan Edwards at wide receiver and had a pass breakup. And then Andrew Dowell made a really good play on Alvin Kamara later in those reps. What stuck out was how much Tre’Quan Smith was the first look in those team drills, he was the first option, and he was Carr’s first completion. He also threw a pass to Kirkwood.
And then something interesting was fullback Adam Prentice, he caught a pass in team drills. Dennis Allen mentioned after practice how rare it is to have a player with the skill set to run a two-back set like him, and how defenses don’t get to practice that. So it makes me think about defensive-minded head coaches, I think they get a bad rep for not being offensive geniuses, but the whole idea of defense is to anticipate and innovate what the offense is going to do. So you have to have an understanding of an offense in order to defend it. After hearing his thoughts about those type of fullbacks and how they aren’t well-defended was interesting.
Other notes that stuck out today were that Blake Grupe is a very impressive kicker at his five-foot-seven stature. It’s noticeable in the way he opens his hips seamlessly. He kicked every ball pretty much exactly the same in terms of technique and form. I remember working with Brooke Kirchhofer on kicking an extra point for NewOrleans.Football and when we practiced at Yulman Stadium, some practice squad members and a high school special teams coach gave us crucial pointers.
We’re both former soccer players, but the mechanics of kicking an extra point and field goals is not the intuitive form we’re used to in our sport. Yet, there are more former soccer players as kickers that I’ve come across than not, including Tulane’s punter and kicker. Grupe also played soccer growing up. It was good to see that he had that ability to open his hips and he was making some impressive kicks – he looks pretty close to my size and it was really windy today. We all pointed out how much the flags were flying in the wind after practice, and I believe that he made every kick that I was looking at, and they were from decently far out. So no kicking competition, but surprisingly play from Blake Grupe.
We saw them use linebackers more in coverage situations when it was looking like they were trying out looks at dime. And I didn’t really notice that today, but I did notice that a lot more linebackers got reps, including Nick Anderson in on third team reps, which I hadn’t seen him in the previous mini camp sessions getting those reps. Jeff Nowak with WWL asked Dennis Allen about Alontae Taylor and Paulson Adebo and whether there’s a competition there. He was pretty upfront that they have a bunch of competitive and really strong players at a lot of roles, and it’s their job to evaluate that.
And that you have to earn playing time, you have to earn your starts. But he said that they’re both very capable, both rising to the occasion, both of them made again, really strong plays today. The best problem to have is having competition at cornerback because it’s just not that easy to come by. Allen continued to speak highly of Alontae Taylor. He did say something that stuck out to me where he said he has a good short term memory and the moment’s never too big for him. You saw that short term memory yesterday where he had allowed a touchdown when he was in coverage by Chris Olave, and ended the day with an interception when he jumped a route on Kawaan Baker thrown by Jake Haener.
You’re going to lose a lot of reps at defensive back. The important part is how quickly you can bounce back. And we saw that the moment wasn’t too big for him when he stepped in midgame in Week 2 last year against the Buccaneers for Marshon Lattimore. And then really anchored down that defensive backfield when all of those injuries happened. It’s rally scary to think what that defense would’ve looked like without Taylor last year.
The biggest takeaway that I’ve had from the three days of minicamp though, is how important the position of quarterback is, and how completely different everything feels when you have someone like Derek Carr at that role. Dennis Allen pointed to his intelligence, his leadership, his skillset, and that it filters throughout the other players. And that’s what you talk about when you say that there’s a quarterback that makes the guys around him better.
A lot of the time that’s with his play. But a lot of that takes place off the field as well. The fact that a lot of wide receivers have looked consistent. I remember last year of charting completions and incompletions, and I almost don’t even have to worry about it. I just assume every pass is going to be caught and almost every single one of them is. It’s hard not to say that Derek Carr’s play hasn’t elevated that entire quarterback room because Jameis Winston and Jake Haener has looked really strong. A lot of that credit goes to Ron Curry and Pete Carmichael. But it shows how much you really need a self-operative driver at that seat and how much of a difference it makes already at this stage in camp.
