re: I know people have varying thoughts on PFF, but they had Fuaga as the 2nd best OT and....

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I just think the saints should've tried and sign leno Jr so they could go bpa in draft.

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Or Peat. It's not like teams are beating down his door. I think there's one other vet 1-year stopgap option, too.

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Belichick said at the end of the first on Mcafee’s show that “OT was picked clean” and teams shouldn’t be trying to address it in the 2nd.

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I love Bill, but he's legit terrible at drafting. That's why he's not a coach anymore.

People focused on my comments about the arms, but it's also his gait/stride/feet that are issues. The combination makes him play a lot "shorter" than you look for in a tackle.

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Saints get their Ramczyk insurance in Fuaga who can be a high level G if need be. One of the best run blockers in the class either way

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James Hurst was Ram insurance too. I’m not sure that’s a ringing endorsement for a guy you take at 1.14. The guy can obviously give you snaps at tackle, I don’t think that’s the issue here

I don’t have a premise. This is the analysis of the two most respected OL guys who work with a ton of prospects and OL guys

This is the from Thorn’s draft profile on Fuaga. Perhaps it articulates his thought better

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Overall, Fuaga has the size, power and run-blocking skills to earn a starting role in his first training camp at guard inside a run-first, play-action-based system. He also has enough quickness to play tackle in a pinch.

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Belichick said at the end of the first on Mcafee’s show that “OT was picked clean” and teams shouldn’t be trying to address it in the 2nd.

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Belicheck has drafted like shite for years. Tom Brady hid a ton of his mistakes. They had more picks than any team and blew a good bit of them. What he thinks doesn’t mean squat.

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Now, if this is true, and he is the #2, 3, or 4 rated tackle in the whole draft, then there are only 1 or 2 actual tackles in the draft; every one else is a guard.

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Kind of.

Alt and Fashano are OTs

The rest are all over the place, potentially. Fuaga, Fautanu (sp), Barton, etc.

To me, and I’ve mentioned this last night, it doesn’t really matter if he’s a guard or tackle. The team needs talent and he’s a talented player. Even the guys who say he’s better off at guard say he’s a sure fire starter from day 1.

Whether that’s at OT or OG, who knows, but he’s going to be a starter. I just want the pick to hit, no matter if it’s at guard or tackle.

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People focused on my comments about the arms, but it's also his gait/stride/feet that are issues. The combination makes him play a lot "shorter" than you look for in a tackle.

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I am, for the 3rd time in this thread , admittedly, not an expert. I am a layperson that makes observations and tries to bring a different perspective occasionally when those observations aren't currently being discussed. As a bit of a change of pace. Granted, they tend to skew positive, because the negative ones would just be redundant.

That said, I made a thread a day or 2 ago asking if the changes in the game have narrowed the value gap between LT and RT. With more athletic QBs rolling out more to their arm side (Tua's the only LH starter right now, huh?), running RPOs to their arm side, going off-platform and leaking out to their arm side, etc...basically anything that gets them out of the pocket--does that lessen the value of "protecting their blindside?" Especially considering the best edge rushers aren't just hand in the dirt DEs who line up on the same side every play. Guys like Parsons and Garrett are standing up on the edge and moving from strong side to weak side to exploit weaknesses.

And this may be a chicken/egg thing, but without looking at any data, I think a lot of power running teams skew towards running behind the right side more (and this is the chicken/egg thing) because RTs tend to be less athletic and more road graders, while LTs are more athletic and can pull to the right side. But if QBs are getting shorter and more athletic on average and there's not the need for your LT to be that much more athletic than your RT because QBs just aren't in the pocket as much as they were 5-10 years ago AND the rules protect them from blindside hits more than any LT ever could, to finally get to Slow's point, do we start to see shorter, more athletic OTs on both sides?

The guy from Washington was really intriguing to me. Or at least the evals of him I heard. Not all, but some people had him as the 2nd highest ranked OT, and he's only 6'4". And it wasn't just his versatility that they loved--though they did love that--they really thought he could play tackle in the NFL. Maybe he's got freakishly long arms, but it seemed to mainly be because of just how athletic he was. They thought that, combined with his strength, could play at OT in the NFL. And I had thought we'd gotten to the point where 6'6"/6'7" was the prototype and you almost had to be at least 6'5" to even be considered a starting tackle. The sizes of almost every position on the field has changed over the past decade due to offenses being faster and defenses having to get faster to keep up. Has that finally affected what teams look for in OTs now?

I don't know if anything I just said actually makes sense, and if it does, whether or not I feel better or worse about our Fuaga pick. I think I just typed myself in circles.

So Gyno, you've made a couple posts suggesting his true position is at guard, but could be a serviceable RT in a pinch. And I'm not mad atcha--hell, I don't know. But we've already made the pick. It's over. Spilled milk. Where do you think we should go from here? What would be your strategy moving forward (without a time machine ) ?

2 more things that I just thought of:

1) Ross Jackson was on something this morning and said Fuaga/Washington ran twice as many zone blocking, outside runs as man. I'm not sure if he mentioned how well he graded out, but in the context it must have been good because he thought it was a positive for the new offense. Which makes me think Kubiak may have had a lot more input into the pick than we thought. Maybe more than DA's.

2) Surely we have some sort of handshake deal with Peat. Maybe give him a week or so after the draft to see if any OT needy teams didn't get what they'd hoped in the draft and his market goes up, but if not, they've agreed on a number for him to come back for 1 more year.