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Originally Posted by
BrockMeaux
Perrion Winfrey was drafted 59 picks after Alontae Taylor. So by your metric of where Winfrey was drafted and how far the Saints overreached for Taylor - based on your extensive scouting - they'd be rated roughly in the same ballpark.
Like I said in my last post, Taylor isn't the guy I would've drafted, either. But when our current defensive staff invests a 4th round pick or higher on a player in the secondary, they have an EXTREMELY high success rate. Secondary players drafted in the 4th round or higher while Allen was here, either as the secondary coach, defensive coordinator, or now head coach are:
2007: Usama Young (3rd round, played in 52 games over 4 years for the Saints)
2008: Tracy Porter (2nd round, played in 43 games over 4 years for the Saints)
2009: Malcolm Jenkins (1st round, played 199 games over a 13 year career)
2009: Chip Vaughn (4th round, never played a regular season snap for the Saints)
2010: Patrick Robinson (1st round, played 123 games over an 11 year career)
Of that group, Chip Vaughn is the only bust. From 2011 through 2014, Allen was first the DC with the Denver Broncos then HC with the Oakland Raiders. In that time, the Saints drafted Johnny Patrick (3rd round, spent 2 years with the Saints), Kenny Vaccaro (1st round, 110 career games), and Stanley Jean-Baptiste (2nd round, appeared in 5 career games over 2 years with the Saints and Ravens, finished with his only recorded stat being 1 solo tackle for Baltimore). Of that group, Kenny Vaccaro was the only good player.
Allen returned in 2015.
The next guys I'm just going to list because we all know. Vonn Bell in 2016, Marshon Lattimore and Marcus Williams in 2017, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson in 2019, Paulson Adebo in 2021, and now Alontae Taylor in 2022. That's 3 Pro Bowlers, future potential Pro Bowlers in Gardner-Johnson and Adebo, and Taylor. Not a bad run.
I can't believe I typed all this at 5am defending a pick I don't even really love, but I said all that to say this: maybe Dennis Allen knows a thing or two about drafting and developing players in the secondary, and certainly more than me, you, and Mel Kiper Jr. and his Big Board. Could this dude be Stanley Jean-Baptiste 2.0? It's possible. But the odds right now are that he's going to develop into a contributor for the team based off of history.