We’ve got just 17 days left until the New Orleans Saints open up their 2024 regular season against the Carolina Panthers, which makes our player of the day wide receiver A.T. Perry, the current owner of the No. 17 jersey. Perry is currently in a battle for the Saints No. 3 receiver job and is hoping to take that next step to being a legitimate option for his team.
Let’s give a little bit of a background on the second-year pro and what we can expect from Perry in 2024:
- Name (Age): A.T. Perry (24)
- Position: Wide Receiver
- Height, weight: 6-foot-5, 205 pounds
- Relative Athletic Score: 9.62
- 2024 salary cap hit: $959,091
- College: Wake Forest
- Drafted: 6th Round, No. 195 in 2023 (New Orleans Saints)
- NFL experience: 2nd season
A.T. Perry grew up in Lake Worth Beach, Fla. where he was a three-star recruit at Park Vista Community High School. Amongst many collegiate scholarship offers, Perry made the decision to attend Wake Forest where he would spend the next five years developing.
As a freshman in college, Perry was redshirted sitting out the entire season in 2018. In his redshirt freshman season, Perry found himself active in four games totaling 4 receptions for 62 yards and a touchdown. His role would slowly increase in 2020, now catching 15 balls for 211 yards and a touchdown in six games. And finally in his redshirt sophomore season, Perry reached new levels. In 2021, Perry would catch 71 passes for 1,293 yards and a school records 15 touchdowns. Perry was named first-team all-ACC and was regarded as one of the best receivers in the country. Choosing to stay for an additional season, Perry posted another 1,000 yard season but this time surpassing his career-high in catches (81) and scoring double digit touchdowns for the second year in a row.
At the end of his final season at Wake Forest, Perry declared for the 2023 NFL draft where he was projected to go in the mid- to late-rounds. But during the draft, Perry heard his name called at pick No. 195 in the sixth round when the New Orleans Saints traded up for him. Perry was quickly regarded as a steal for the Saints due to his falling stock during the draft. It was reported that there were character concerns tied to this but it was never really discussed or examined further.
In his first season as a Saint, Perry was active in 10 games totaling 246 yards receiving on 12 catches while scoring 4 touchdowns his rookie season. Perry became one of the teams big play threats down the stretch as he averaged 20.5 yards per catch in 2023. It was starting to look like the Saints had potentially a nice, young core at receiver with Olave, Shaheed and Perry.
Going into 2024, Perry had a slow start to training camp and didn’t really asserting his dominance as the team’s third receiver. It took all the way until the first week of preseason for Perry to start consistently making some plays within this new Saints offense. He made a statement during his first preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals, making some big catches down the field, but quickly followed that up with a disappointing outing with the San Francisco 49ers.
As of now, there’s still hope for Perry to become the player that many think he can be but he doesn’t have much time to show us as the start of the regular season is just a few weeks away. He needs to step up soon.
