What will the New Orleans Saints do in the 2025 NFL draft? It’s way too soon to say with certainty, but there’s no better time to speculate than the Saints’ bye week. With a defense built on aging talent moving slower and making fewer plays, one obvious area they should address is their pass rush.
Just ask ESPN’s Matt Miller. He argues the Saints should go to one of college football’s powerhouses with their first pick, even if Georgia star Jalon Walker’s immediate fit in the Joe Woods-coordinated defense is unclear:
There’s a lot of uncertainty in New Orleans, which will have a new coach after Dennis Allen’s midseason firing and has questions about quarterback Derek Carr‘s future. The Saints could use this pick to improve a defense that gives up 6.1 yards per play, second worst in the league. Plus, Cameron Jordan and Demario Davis will be 36 years old next season. Walker has played as an off-ball linebacker and off the edge. He doesn’t have great size, but his first-step speed and power have helped him to 5.5 sacks. I like him in a stand-up rushing role in a 3-4 scheme if New Orleans’ new regime goes that route.
The problem is the Saints don’t have a history of developing players like Walker — undersized edge rushers who are too light to play at defensive end with a hand in the dirt, but without the experience at dropping into coverage when stanced up off the ball at linebacker. Think of guys like Zack Baun and Martez Wilson, or Davis Tull and Ronald Powell in the later rounds.
At the same time, the Saints haven’t gotten much out of plug-and-play conventional defensive ends like Payton Turner and Isaiah Foskey, either (to say nothing of the failed Marcus Davenport experiment). And it could be a whole new coaching staff making these decisions by the time April gets here. While there’s good reason to have some skepticism about Walker’s fit with the established system and coaches the Saints have right now, he could end up being just who they need to turn things around.
