There has been positive news surrounding Ryan Ramczyk, and coupled with what we heard at the Combine, is the Saints offensive line in a better spot than we thought?
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 You kind of talked about offensive line Ryan Ramchick.
00:03 We learned obviously had a minor procedure on his knee and
00:07 and then the keyword there is it was minor.
00:09 It wasn't major and he's expected to be ready for training camp.
00:13 So that's actually a really positive thing.
00:15 And, you know, we talked about it on the show saying that we we knew that,
00:18 you know, the outlook was good, that we heard it from Mickey.
00:21 We heard it from Dennis that they felt really good about Ramchick in his future.
00:25 He felt really good about his future.
00:27 But this kind of solidifies it and going into training camp, you know,
00:30 they're only going to be without presumably Nephi Sewell
00:33 because of that ACL injury.
00:35 Huge. That's encouraging.
00:36 And the fact that they also are very high on some of these younger guys
00:39 that they have, the Nick Saldaveris, the Landon Young and Trevor Penning.
00:43 You know, before we get too crazy, you know, it doesn't sound like
00:48 he's going to be changing his position.
00:49 So Ramchick in, you know, that's a good thing.
00:52 Penning, they still believe a lot in him.
00:55 Sounds like he's going to stick it left tackle and then they're going to kind of
00:58 go through this process and see.
00:59 But, you know, all of a sudden, a couple of that with Eric McCoy,
01:03 Cesar Ruiz now and Pete might become a free agent.
01:07 He's probably going to get left tackle money the way he played.
01:10 But this offensive line may be a little bit better of a picture
01:13 and outlook than maybe what we thought before.
01:16 Yeah. Yeah.
01:16 I think the biggest thing now that you're kind of asking a question about
01:19 is who's that left guard, right?
01:20 Does James Hurst come back?
01:22 Does Nick Saldaveris step into that role?
01:24 I think a lot of people kind of forget about him a bit.
01:26 Some folks kind of think about him as a tackle, but they really like him
01:29 on the interior in the NFL, especially at his size, arm length, stuff like that.
01:33 Like maybe Nick Saldaveris, the guy that steps up into that role and earns that role.
01:36 So I would expect the Saints to want to bring in depth
01:39 and competition along the offensive line.
01:42 But maybe there's a lot of this that just like the Saints
01:45 grab this sort of, you know, Kyle Shanahan or not.
01:48 I want to call it the Kyle Shanahan system.
01:50 It's really the Shanahan Kubiak system.
01:52 But like they go and grab this and they bring it here to New Orleans,
01:54 not just because it's good.
01:55 It's a good fit at maximizing Derek Carr, but maybe there's a lot of it
01:59 that maximizes the talent that they already have on the offensive line as well,
02:02 which is really good.
02:03 And so I think that that's one of those things that opens up the potential
02:06 for an early wide receiver or something like that, maybe in the draft,
02:10 something that maybe we haven't really looked at a ton.
02:12 But if you want a good possession wide receiver,
02:15 you can get a pretty good one in this year's draft, especially at 14.
02:19 So they're out there. You get one at 45, even if you wanted to.
02:22 So I think it's going to be, yeah, Brian Thomas Jr.
02:25 Somebody just mentioned, like, that's a really good option, you know,
02:27 and I know he's an LSU Tiger. I'm sorry.
02:29 I did the thing I'm not supposed to do.
02:30 I did the forbidden thing. I said the LSU guy.
02:32 But I mean, you know, just looking at those prototypes like they exist
02:37 in this year's draft, I'll put it that way.
02:39 And so if you're feeling really good about Ryan Ramchick as an organization,
02:42 which I think the three things that if you mold them together
02:45 or the two things, if you put them together that are really important.
02:48 You mentioned the minor knee surgery, not major knee surgery.
02:51 And the fact that everyone except for Nifai Sewell
02:54 is expected to be ready at training camp that kind of identifies that
02:59 maybe there's no other surgeries kind of in the way
03:02 just based on like connecting those two dots.
03:04 So that could be a good thing, too.
03:06 And so if you're still wondering about what's in store for Ryan Ramchick,
03:09 it looks like just recovery and then going back to training camp,
03:11 which would be great.
03:12 And then I think that there's levels around Trevor Penning that like
03:16 if the big thing about him was his aggression, his ability in the run game,
03:21 then maybe a wide zone offense is kind of perfect for him.
03:24 You know what I mean?
03:25 And an offense that gets the ball out of the hands of the quarterback quickly.
03:28 That's good for any offensive lineman.
03:30 So it could mean that you take the need at offensive tackle
03:33 and start to retrain yourself to think about it as depth and development
03:36 as opposed to a fresh new starter.
03:38 And then it opens up a world of possibilities for you at picks 14 and 45.
03:42 I'd imagine.
03:42 Yeah, it the the the world could be your oyster, right?
03:46 And, you know, you look at you talked about veteran offensive lineman
03:49 that potentially like they brought in Trey Turner last year.
03:52 It was unfortunate he got hurt.
03:54 But at the time, that looked really good, you know.
03:57 And then obviously they brought in Cam Irving later.
04:00 They had Max Garcia and these guys ended up playing a lot of football
04:04 for this team, you know, whether it was unexpected or not.
04:07 But again, I think offensive line, you look at it and Hearst is actually
04:11 under contract.
04:11 I know there's some like crazy stuff on Spotrak that was like
04:15 saying he wasn't.
04:16 But, you know, we talked to him at the end of the year
04:18 and he's like, if I'm not under contract, I'm going to be surprised.
04:20 He's like, that's news to me.
04:22 Yeah, right.
04:23 So it's like, I guess you look at it.
04:25 It could still be the same offensive line
04:29 of what they thought it was going to be this year.
04:31 But still, I like the fact that when you look at it,
04:34 you still have to look at the offensive line and address some of the position.
04:38 They can do that in free agency.
04:39 It's not going to be the big ones.
04:41 There's going to be big names out there.
04:43 I mean, Tyron Smith just got released or is going to get released.
04:46 You know, there's going to be all these players,
04:48 whether they're older veterans or the contracts are just too much.
04:51 There is going to be a lot of player movement.
04:53 And, you know, I get on my soapbox when I talk about these mock drafts.
04:57 This is why I don't go heavy in the mock draft, because
05:00 so many things change and this is one of them.
05:03 So it's like a guy that you didn't really expect to be available.
05:07 Now, all of a sudden he is.
05:08 And of course, other teams are going to be competing for him.
05:10 But if you have a very saturated tackle market all of a sudden,
05:15 then that bodes well for a Saints team.
05:17 And of course, the cap should go up next year.
05:20 It should keep going up.
05:21 I mean, they expect it to be kind of a steady incline as they try to make up
05:24 some of the stuff from COVID and all that, but it could work. Right.
05:28 And I think, again, you look at putting the pieces to the puzzle
05:32 and the way they feel about the depth and again, is it going to work?
05:35 We don't know, because it's a new offensive line coach.
05:38 That's a lot of things to do, but they do believe in Trevor Penning.
05:42 They believe that they can put him in any offensive scheme and it will work.
05:46 And of course, he's a guy that I think needs to just get his confidence
05:50 back a little bit. Right.
05:51 And so this is a crucial year for him.
05:53 We've talked about him for sure.
05:55 Getting Ramchack back is going to be huge.
05:58 Obviously, Ruiz and McCoy.
06:00 I think this system is going to help them out a good bit, too.
06:03 And then at Lefkart, you might have Hearst.
06:05 Now, I think that they can look at again, like you said, Salvaveri
06:09 is a potential person that they can look inside guys like Mark Evans.
06:13 But we kind of forget on the practice squad.
06:15 Maybe he can push himself and make something of himself.
06:18 You know, we talked about Landon Young.
06:20 He's super intelligent and he just keeps getting better and better.
06:24 I feel like I can't wait for him to coach someday, man.
06:27 Like I'm not I'm not trying to speak.
06:28 I'm not trying to speed past his college career, but he's going to I mean,
06:31 sorry, his NFL career.
06:33 But man, he's going to be a wild, good coach someday.
06:35 If he decides to go that route or maybe a really good analyst.
06:37 I don't know.
06:38 Come on the show, Landon. Come talk to us. Yeah, exactly.
06:41 We'll go. We'll go.
06:43 We'll go track him down at some point.
06:45 I know he's at home with his little boy and he's just enjoying that.
06:48 So.