Having this concentration of such players – on a team as good, as talented and as explosive as New Orleans – though is stunning.
These are the scrap-heap Saints, currently 14-3 and headed full throttle into Saturday’s divisional round playoff game at San Francisco. It’s become a point of pride for the franchise. Around the locker room they point to the keen eye of the scouting staff and the savvy of general manager Mickey Loomis.
More often than not, though, they cite the culture created by head coach Sean Payton, who perhaps more than anyone in the NFL has managed to block out résumés from his week-to-week evaluations. Instead, he trusts what he sees, not what someone else, or even himself, saw previously.
“I think it’s a lot easier to be fair than to try to be fair,” Payton said.
Well, perhaps. What isn’t easy is being so willing to replace players that you’ve invested draft picks, money and your own credibility in selecting in the first place. For many, that’s an ego bruise that clouds the entire evaluation.
Not Payton.
“Sometimes you miss them in the evaluation process,” he said with a shrug. “And then sometimes maybe you over-evaluate a player
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