Big Blue View
With the New York Giants traveling to the Big Easy this week to face the New Orleans Saints, we turned to SB Nation’s Canal Street Chronicles for the scoop on the Saints. Nic Jennings answers our ‘5 questions’.
Ed: Let’s get right to it. As excited as the Giants are to have him, should the Saints have selected Jaxson Dart in the draft when they had the chance?
Nic: Personally, I don’t think so. The selection of Kelvin Banks Jr. has looked like a smart one so far, as the Saints appear to have successfully replaced their former All-Pro tackle duo of Terron Armstead and Ryan Ramczyk with Banks and last year’s first-round pick, Taliese Fuaga.
I also don’t think I would have felt comfortable taking a quarterback that early—especially with the void at offensive tackle after Trevor Penning’s move to guard. At the time, I even thought the Saints might have reached a bit on Tyler Shough.
Interestingly enough, the majority of Who Dat Nation seemed more in favor of drafting the best player available rather than the best quarterback available—and that’s exactly what the Saints did.
Ed: Staying with QB, is there some disappointment Tyler Shough did not win the job? How has Spencer Rattler played?
Nic: I wouldn’t say so. I’ve seen a lot of fans argue that this is stunting the development of the rookie QB, but at the same time, Spencer Rattler is a year younger, already has a season under his belt, showed promise last year and followed it up with an impressive offseason. He’s just as much of a developmental player as Shough.
I get it—you spent a second-round pick on a 27-year-old rookie QB, and you want to see what you’ve got right away to know if you need to draft another quarterback next year. But Kellen Moore went with the guy he believed was most ready for the speed of the NFL right now, and I’d say Rattler has done a really solid job while taking immense strides in his development.
I say this with the utmost confidence: if Rattler can clean up some of his accuracy issues, he has all the intangibles to be the franchise signal-caller for this football team.
Ed: If you could take one player off the Giants’ roster and put him in the Saints’ lineup, who would it be? Why?
Nic: If I could take one player from the Giants’ roster, it would have to be All-Pro DT Dexter Lawrence. For quite some time now, the interior of the Saints’ defensive line has been one of the weakest spots on the roster.
Maybe a couple of years ago, I would have gone with Brian Burns for some production off the edge, but the emergence of Carl Granderson has made me more confident in that group—even with Chase Young yet to suit up this season.
While the unit has improved a bit this year, run defense...
