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Welcome to the New Orleans Saints Podcast. Aaron Summers here back again with some more NFC South Draft previews. Also getting caught up on what they did during the offseason leading up to the draft, because of course that may affect some of their needs and players that they're looking for. We've previewed the Atlanta Falcons on Monday, We're looking at the Carolina Panthers today, and then on Friday, we are going to get into things with the Tampa Bay Bucks.
For the Panthers today, they do pick in that eighth spot first round, right before the Saints do at number nine, could have an effect on who's available for the Saints, and what's happening with the Saints could have an effect on what the Panthers do with their pick. So a lot to get into here, and for that reason, I am bringing in the Panthers radio play by play voice of the Carolina Panthers Aniche Shiraff to help break things down with me. Anish, Thank you so much for joining
me on the New Orleans Saints podcast. It's always good to see you and catch up. Off season is here, but it doesn't seem like much of an off season. We've both been really busy as we're gearing up for the draft here. But how are things going for you?
It's just been topsy turvy. It's spinning, but I mean that in the best possible way. With baseball and college basketball being done, a little bit of lacrosse, college baseball, and you know, obviously the NFL Draft right around the corner. Exciting time, especially given how the Panthers finished last season, what they were able to do in free agency, and now you're kind of looking for that final layer of the roster before you get into camp and certainly before you get into the summer.
Yeah, looking at what they did last season, saw a new level of Bryce Young at quarterback. So same things seem pretty solid there. Offense looks good. Defense might be the side of the ball that we're looking to continue to bolster here through the draft.
What are you.
Thinking as far as what the needs are coming out of free agency and last season.
Well, what they were able to do last year. If you go back, they needed to shore up the offensive line a year ago, and they went out and they signed Robert Hunt, who you guys know, having played his college ball in Louisiana. They went out and got another Louisiana guy, former LSU product in Damian Lewis, and all of a sudden, it made a huge difference. The Panthers went from an offensive line that didn't have a ton of depth the year before that was ravaged by injuries
to this past season. It was a top ten unit. They were able to run the ball. Touba Hubbard had his best season and the bryce that we saw the second half and guys probably remember and it's painful. He started with that win against the Saints and that was really the turn, that was the pivot point in his brief two year career. He then beats the Giants, they go into a bye week, everybody is still in a half measure mode. Is this for real? Is it a mirage?
And then he goes to Tote with Patrick Mahomes almost beats Philly and the way he ended the season with the five touchdown game against Atlanta, people feel really good about Bryce Young going into twenty twenty five, could they use another skill player. I think you can make a case that there's maybe a need for another wide receiver or a pass catching tight end. But what they did last year was kind of go all in on offense, and they knew that they were gonna be a little
thin on defense. And when you're thin going into the year, then you have injuries the way the Panthers did first game of the year against the Saints. You lose Derek Brown. He's the best player on the team. That was crippling. They were never really the same upfront. So this offseason they treated it much like they treated the old line last offseason. They went out and they tried to get Milton Armstrong, couldn't get him. But thereon Williams right, the
guy from Philly. But they did go out and they got Bobby Brown, a guy who's young and still has some pretty good upside. You get Derek Brown healthy coming back. Ashawn Robinson is back. Now. They wanted to address the pass rush, so you bring back Clowney and wantam Now add Turk Wharton from the Chiefs. You go and add Pat Jones coming over from the Vikings. So you've added some pieces. You go get morg the safety from the Raiders.
So they put themselves in a position where, yes, defense clearly is still going to be the need, but they can go get the best available player or even maneuver and possibly trade that eighth overall pick. They've given them selves options by getting deeper through free agency defense.
You mentioned kind of building that defensive line through free agency. The first pick, though I've seen in a lot of these mock drafts for the Panthers, is still on the line as an edge that seems like a lot of teams are after them, and there's a lot of good ones in this draft. It's a very deep position, which is good. The Panthers pick at eighth, right before the Saints.
So in the draft mock drafts that you've seen names that have been popping up, do you think they're going to go with an edge or are they going to kind of look in more into the secondary to start things off?
Yeah? I think so much of it will depend on what happens one through seven. Right. If a Mason Graham is available, boy, doesn't that look tempting. You can get a d lineman like that, you pair him with Derek Brown and Ayshawn Robinson and Bobby Brown All of a sudden, that's a pretty formidable defensive front in a coach of Arrow's three to four defense. Would an abdull Carter get to eight? I would highly doubt it. But if he's there,
that's got to be tantalizing. And then you know, you look at the Georgia guys, namely Jalen Walker, whose name has been associated with that eighth pick quite a bit. Just the pedigree of the Georgia defensive players going into the draft and being successful in the NFL these last few years. Look no further than you're defending Super Bowl champions of the Eagles. I mean, how many Georgia guys
were on their defense. And Walker's unique because not only can he rush the passer and he could play the edge for you, he's a pretty good off ball linebacker and he's pretty strong in run support, and a lot of scouts see that as his strength right now and almost see the edge rusher potential is something that is developing, still a little raw and on polished, but certainly it's there. And you know, some of the comps that I've heard, one is Frankie Louvu, who you guys saw when he
played for the Panthers. That guy was a human tempest. And Walker is a movable chess piece in that defense. Again, if he's there, i'd imagine he's going to be an option for Dan Morgan.
After that. I've seen a lot of safety as a position that pops later in the draft. You have nine picks number eight and then second round it's fifty seven, and he kind of scattered through the rest of the draft from there. Safety secondary, How big of a need do you feel like that is?
Well, again, they're not very deep there. So they re signed j C. Horn, their cornerback, the son of Joe Horn. He got a massive deal to stay with Carolina. They re signed Mike Jackson, who had a pretty strong year. They got him from Seattle for a seventh round pick. Not a ton of depth behind those guys at corner. And then the safety room's been totally rebuilt. They went and got Mooring from the Raiders, who's really good against
the run. And then right now after that, you got Demani Richardson, who was an undrafted free agent last year, had a couple of strong games when he started, but again, young guy not a ton of experience. They brought Nick Scott back. He was up and down last year. I think they view him more, at least now, as a special teams piece. And you know, a guy who could
start at a pinch, but that is in need. And what's unique is the NFL has sort of devalued the safety position where you can't play that position the way a Ronnie Lott or a Jack Tatum or a Steve at Water or even a John Lynch played that position. Otherwise you're just gonna get fined left and right, maybe suspended and penalized a whole lot. So I think what the Panthers would like as a ballhawk back there. They haven't had that ballhawking safety in a few years. And
you know there's names out there. You get Malachi Starks, another Georgia guy, Xavier Watts, who people saw at Notre Dame. I think he had double digit interceptions over the last two years. So there are some options there. The question is when do you take them. Do you take them early second round? Is that too early? Or can you wait and take a safety and get a good one later.
It's second season under head coach Dave Canals, so you have an idea of what he likes players, and the front office obviously came in at the same time. What's that dynamic, like, how much, say, does Canals have in who he thinks they should draft or the positions that he feel is needed.
Well, the buzzword a year ago was alignment general manager, head, coach, ownership all the way down. And there's a stream of information and a flow of information that moves both ways. So certainly Dave has a lot of input. He has a long relationship with Dan Morgan going back to their days in Seattle, so they're very much aligned in terms of what fits, what do we need, what can we get, what makes sense given the constraints of the salary cap
in the NFL. I think the biggest benefit of having Dave and his staff back mostly intact for year two is going to be to the offense in Bryce Young. Dave Canalis is also the offensive coordinator. Essentially, he's the play caller, so Bryce, for the first time in his pro career, will have that continuity from one offseason to the next. And if we've learned anything about him, this kid is a fast learner. And if we saw the
strides he made in the second half. I think it's exciting to see what he can do now with a full offseason in the same offense, not having to learn a new language all over again.
We might not bury the lead here, But how much is the Panthers draft dependent on what we've been hearing about the Saints and what they're doing.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that, because even though the Panthers are not in the market for a quarterback, if the Saints are, and with New Orleans holding the ninth pick overall, and even if there's a team that picks after the Saints that might be interested in a quarterback, well, now probably have to move up at least to nine, probably into the top eight to go get a quarterback. I think there's still this prevailing sentiment that cam Ward is going to go in
the top seven picks. You know, Shador Sanders. We're kind of saying projections all over the place. I still think at the end of the day, with Tennessee, with the Giants, some of the teams picking in the top seven, I still think Shadoor Sanders finds himself on one of those teams. Now, if he's off the board before the Saints pick. Are they going to trade up to go get a Jackson Dart.
Is somebody else going to leapfrog the Saints and try to move up to go get a Jackson Dart, maybe even Shador Sanders, And all of a sudden, that eighth pick now for the Panthers becomes prime real estate. Where let's say you do decide to move down, and you do decide to trade the pick. Teams that generally are trading up with the intention of drafting a quarterback will give you more draft capital for that pick.
It's going to be really interesting to see how things shake out because I remember being at the combine and if dul Carter stood up there and said, I am the best player in this draft and I should go number one, and I just don't know if that's going to be what happens. He is definitely talented, but there are a lot of teams out here who do need quarterbacks. You know, Tyler Schuck from Louisville has been climbing up the board as well over the past couple of days.
So it's going to be a lot of movement, I feel like, and a lot of surprises.
Yeah, and Shuck to me is a real interesting case because he was in college forever. I think he's twenty five, twenty six years old. He's got a pretty lengthy injury history. So is that a guy that you're going to mortgage your first round pick on to go get If you're the Saints and you're looking at Tyler Shuck, does that make sense given that you know, Derek Carr hasn't exactly been a poster child of health in who's his two years with New Orleans and now, well, you know, might
be dealing with something. I feel like we don't quite know the whole story there, but to me, there's you know, a couple of the guys too, Jalen Milroe at Alabama. I heard some rumblings at the combine where, you know, a couple of people were saying, don't be surprised if somebody gets enamored by his workout, because physically he can do a lot of the things that Lamar Jackson does and it's a copycat league. Now, does that mean he's
going to be the next Lamar Jackson? The odds are probably slim, but it takes one team to believe that, Hey, is there a spot where we can go get a Jalen Milroe and maybe develop him for a year. He sits for a year. And now if you have even Lamar Light, he got a top ten quarterback in the NFL. So you know, those things are interesting. And the other thing is, you know, is there is a little bit of a misinformation war that goes on and it ram especially now you know, you start to listen to the
signal and the noise and decipher what's what. They're teams and agents putting things out with a purpose and they're hoping for people like us to pick up on it and tweet it and post it and go on TV and talk about it and say, hey, this guy Tyler Schuck, this guy his draft stock is going up and down. And a lot of these are smoke screens. A lot of these are to throw other teams off the set, and you got to really decipher what's real and what's not.
Right now, I think it's always so funny because there's fifty players that are getting drafted in the top ten, you know, and these agents are sure of it and you better go out and get them. And it's like, okay, let's think about this. I don't think the math adds up here. Looking at the NFC South, I feel like a couple of years ago, everybody was trying to solidify their quarterback position and really looking at their offense. This year seems like every team is really trying to make
their defense better across the board. The Falcons, the Bucks like that is the area they need to get better, and the Saints honestly as well. So it's going to be an interesting year in the division. How do you think things are going to shake out?
You know, it's wild because for a while, you had Drew Brees in New Orleans. You had those years where Tom Brady was in Tampa and Matt Ryan Cam Newton. You really had some established quarterbacks in the ANFC South. And you know, age catches up to everybody. Cam is out of the league, Matt Ryan retires, Breeze retires, Brady retired for good, I hope, and now everyone's kind of searching for that next guy. We saw what the Falcons did last year taking Pennix. The Panthers traded up to
number one to go get Bryce Young. The Bucks were able to resurrect Baker Mayfield's career. The Saints were hoping that Derek Carr would be maybe an answer that seems murky, But this division is still very open. The Saints are a team you mentioned changes on defense, they were getting older on defense. I think they're at a bit of a crossroads. Tampa is a team they're getting older as well.
Atlanta's got a really great young corps of offensive players. Defensively, we've been talking about the Falcons potentially taking a pass rusher in the first round for I don't know how many years they never do, and then you know the Panthers, since they drafted Bryce Young, you have kind of been
in rebuild, retool mode. And this kind of seems like a year for Carolina with what they've been able to do in free agency and now with another draft where they might have a chance to compete for a division title. So I think everybody's sort of in that same boat where all four teams probably look at the season and go, yeah, we can win this division.
Kind of seems like that's how it's been for the past couple of years here, where everyone's like, yeah, it's there for the taking, but nobody goes out and takes it. So maybe this year somebody will come on, start strong and take over the division. We'll see what happens, But thank you so much for giving me the insight on the Panthers. Got to know everything about our opponents, make sure that we're making the better moves when it gets
to the draft. So I appreciate it and we'll see you here down the line pretty soon.
Yeah, and if you want to trade up for Tyler Shuck, I'm all for it.
Yeah.
Of course, thanks Adiche You got it a lot to keep track of as the NFL Draft approaches, first round April twenty fourth, second and third April twenty fifth, and then Day three, rounds four through seven on April twenty six. It all goes down just next week, so make sure you're getting a look at all those mock drafts, familiarizing yourself with the names, and of course listening to our podcast right here on New Orleans Saints dot com or
wherever you get your pods. Friday, it is the Bucks, they're up, so we're gonna get to know everything we need to know about the last NFC South team.
Talk to you then, thanks for listening to the New Orleans Saints podcast presented by Seat Geek. Join us three times per week on New Orleans Saints dot Com. The Saints Mobile app, or you can download the podcast on iTunes. We'll see you next time right here on the New Orleans Saints Podcast, presented by seat Geek