The 2023 New Orleans Saints draft class has been one that has gotten mixed reviews from around the NFL world. Now, we’re able to get a full view of what the consensus of the class is thanks to René Bugner putting together a compilation of 29 different draft grades to give every team a grade point average.
Doug Farrar at TouchdownWire put every team in order and gave his thoughts on the grade. Here were his thoughts on the Saints being ranked 22nd in the league with a 2.68 GPA.
The Saints lost a lot of talent along their defensive line in free agency, and they addressed that with authority in this draft. If Bryan Bresee can stay healthy, he’ll be one of the best interior disruptors in this entire draft class. He’s a natural one-gap penetrator, and you can line him up everywhere from nose shade to edge. I liked Isaiah Foskey’s tape more than some people I’ve talked to, and head coach Dennis Allen won’t have any trouble taking Foskey’s 12 sacks and 33 total pressures from last season and extracting that kind of production in his concepts.
Personally, I felt that this grade was much lower than expected going into the list. It feels a bit harsh for a team that mostly just filled needs they had going into the draft, minus potentially adding a linebacker. The selection of Bryan Bresee has been one that’s been criticized based on his past health concerns. The addition of Kendre Miller was another that could turn out to be much more important that some might be giving them credit for right now, with a looming Alvin Kamara trade.
One thing that has been repeatedly brought up when discussing the draft class was the trade last year that kept the Saints from using their first round pick this year. That should not be counted as a negative for this class, as it was also heavily criticized as a part of last year’s class which is more fair in my opinion.
Here is the full list of grades for every NFL team, provided by Bugner:
🏈🧑🏻🎓 I´ve compiled 29 evaluations of the 2023 NFL draft and totaled the team grades.
Here is the spreadsheet. Sorted by GPA for all 32 teams.
I also sorted the 29 evaluations by GPA. From left (soft graders) to right (hard graders).
Thanks to all who give out grades every year! pic.twitter.com/lEvqCkViCT— René Bugner (@RNBWCV) May 25, 2023
