Much of the attention on the New Orleans Saints’ 2020 NFL draft class has centered on right guard Cesar Ruiz, and for good reason — the former first-round pick struggled mightily through the first two years of his career before turning things around last season, and now he’s going into what could be a career-year with plenty of momentum behind him, despite an unfortunate season-ending injury in rearview. If the Saints don’t choose to exercise his fifth-year option after this year’s draft (which would cost them more than $14 million in 2024), he’ll be a free agent next year.
His other 2020 draftmates don’t have the luxury of a fifth-year option ahead of them, and they also haven’t quite met expectations up to this point. At the time of the draft, general manager Mickey Loomis and the team’s decision-makers like assistant GM Jeff Ireland told us they were going for a quality-over-quantity approach by drafting just four players, and trading up for three of them — linebacker Zack Baun, tight end Adam Trautman, and quarterback-turned-tight end Tommy Stevens. That strategy was met with skepticism at the time, and history hasn’t exactly justified the idea there.
