The New Orleans Saints have been treading water since Drew Brees’s final years in the NFL. While they’ve tried to build a playoff team around Derek Carr, it just hasn’t worked out as well as the franchise may have hoped. With Carr announcing his shocking retirement, the Saints have a silver lining to consider.
Without a legitimate starting-caliber quarterback with them, they have a chance to reset their timeline and clear up their messy cap situation. This year, the trio of Tyler Shough, Spencer Rattler, and Jake Haener will be the primary candidates for the QB1 job, with the rookie the likely option among the three. But, the 2026 NFL Draft might offer them a chance to start building for the future, or so one analyst believes.
New Orleans Saints Finally Embracing Rebuild?
At the tail end of Brees’ career, New Orleans’s swings felt novel and warranted. However, repeating the same experiment with Carr as the lead signal-caller wasn’t the best idea from Saints management.
It’s left their cap situation in a mess, and the organization will need some time to sort it out. The 2025 season offers them a valuable chance at that, with evaluating Shough the primary objective for the franchise.
But, with a sub-par roster and a rookie quarterback, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Saints near the top of the 2026 NFL Draft. That is where Jacob Infante has them in his latest mock draft for PFSN, with a clear idea in mind about New Orleans’ future.
“The New Orleans Saints have a handful of glaring needs heading into the 2025 season. The best thing to do in that situation is to just take the best player available, and that’s what they do in this 2026 NFL Mock Draft.”
As a result, there is one player that he believes stands out from the rest of the collegiate field going into next year. Even with the plethora of talented quarterbacks on the board, Infante had the bold claim to declare Caleb Downs out of Ohio State as the “best overall player”.
“He’s a big, brilliant defensive back with elite range, sharp processing, and positional versatility. Downs is effective in coverage, disruptive against the run, and brings strong ball skills and effort as a downhill tackler.”
For those out there coaching football (youth football especially) next time your coaching your defense up on “running THROUGH the tackle” show them this 👇🏾 clip of Caleb Downs! 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/kdHBjDqlwm
— B.Moses (@bmoses30) November 17, 2024
“He’s a big, brilliant defensive back with elite range, sharp processing, and positional versatility. Downs is effective in coverage, disruptive against the run, and brings strong ball skills and effort as a downhill tackler.”
For any team approaching a full-blown rebuild, establishing a culture and defense before slotting in a potential franchise quarterback is ideal. The Saints, who finished 19th on PFSN’s Defense+ metric, could use a boost on that side of the football.
Downs might be the ideal player to give them that kick, while helping to become the culture-setter in New Orleans for many years to come.