Saints Offense Catches Groove During First Minicamp Practice Session

The Saints held their first minicamp practice of the week, and it did not disappoint with action. Get caught up with all of our notes, observations and more.

Marshon Lattimore at Saints Minicamp / John Hendrix

The first day of Saints mandatory minicamp is in the books, and we learned a good bit about New Orleans from their first of three sessions. Here's all of my notes, observations and takeaways from Tuesday's practice.

ATTENDANCE

Among those not spotted included Stanley Morgan Jr., Faion Hicks, Nephi Sewell, Ryan Ramczyk, Juwan Johnson, Tommy Hudson, Bryan Bresee, Tanoh Kpassagnon, Jack Heflin and Chase Young. Dennis Allen said after practice that those were not on the field, with the exception of Ryan Ramczyk, are in the facility dealing with injuries or sickness. A good bit of these are minor injuries, I'm told. For Young, he'll be seeing Dr. Watkins this week so the team gets a better feel for where he's at in his return. He said in the locker room that he's taking things one day at a time.

RAMCZYK: No changes with Ryan Ramczyk, and Allen said afterwards the Saints determined that the best thing for him was to rehab at home. The team hasn't seen the progress they had hoped for, and that he's not trending in either direction. There's no timetable for him to return, and there's really no reason to be optimistic about him coming back right now.

EARLY EXITS: The Saints were light at tight end today without Tommy Hudson and Juwan Johnson, and Michael Jacobson ended up leaving practice early with an undisclosed injury, but he was in the locker room afterwards. Jacobson made a really nice corner end zone catch in drills before exiting practice. Tryout player Jordan Smith also left the field early.

MCKINSTRY: We got to see Kool-Aid McKinstry working off to the side today without a helmet, which is the first step in the ramp-up process. You can see some really good lateral movement and it's going to be exciting to see him get on the field. Allen said that he'll end up seeing reps in both the slot and on the outside, and if a game were played today, it would be Alontae Taylor going there for the Saints.

STARTING LOOKS AND MORE

The Saints offensive line ran looked the same from OTAs with (left to right) Taliese Fuaga, Nick Saldiveri, Erik McCoy, Cesar Ruiz and Trevor Penning. The second unit was Justin Herron, Shane Lemieux, Lucas Patrick, Kyle Hergel and Landon Young. Players like Dallin Holker, Bub Means, Mason Tipton and Jordan Mims saw some reps with the first team at various points. Cedrick Wilson continues to be the third wide receiver option, mainly the slot with Rashid Shaheed and Chris Olave in the mix.

Defensively, the Saints ran a few different looks today, including a Quarter and Dime look when they were working on end of half sequencing. For that defense, you had Cam Jordan, Nathan Shepherd and Carl Granderson on the line with Demario Davis at linebacker. Paulson Adebo and Marshon Lattimore were on the outside with Alontae Taylor in the slot. Tyrann Mathieu and Johnathan Abram were at safety and Ugo Amadi and Jordan Howden were the extra defensive backs. The second look was Isaiah Foskey, Kendal Vickers and Payton Turner on the line with Willie Gay Jr. and Pete Werner at linebacker. Shemar Jean-Charles and Rezjohn Wright were on the outside and Ugo Amadi, Will Harris, Johnathan Abram and J.T. Gray were all in the mix as defensive backs.

7s (1st Group) - Paulson Adebo, Marshon Lattimore, Demario Davis, Pete Werner, Tyrann Mathieu, Alontae Taylor, Johnathan Abram

7s (2nd Group) - Rezjohn Wright, Shemar Jean-Charles, Willie Gay Jr., D'Marco Jackson, Anfernee Orji, J.T. Gray, Will Harris

QUARTERBACK CAROUSEL

Here's the final numbers for each quarterback today, with the splits.

• Derek Carr: 11/16 (5/6 in 7s, 2/3 in team, 4/7 in End of Half)
• Jake Haener: 11/12 (5/5 in 7s, 2/2 in team, 4/5 in End of Half)
• Spencer Rattler: 7/9 (4/5 in 7s, 1/1 in team, 2/3 in End of Half)
• Nathan Peterman: 3/3 (2/2 in 7s, 1/1 in team)

THROWS OF THE DAY: The first goes to Derek Carr, who had a really nice hookup to Chris Olave in 7-on-7 working against Marshon Lattimore. They had a deep left sideline hookup and Olave definitely put on some of his best stuff on the route. Will Harris was the other closest defender. The second would go to Jake Haener, who hit Rashid Shaheed deep down the right sideline for a big gain near the end zone working against Rezjohn Wright. Honorable mention would go to Spencer Rattler on an out route near the ride sideline for an intermediate gain to A.T. Perry during 7s.

On the day, Haener had some of the best throws for sure. He had two consecutive sideline hookups on nearly identical routes in 7s, one hookup going to Equanimeous St. Brown (Shemar Jean-Charles) and the other to Cedrick Wilson (Ugo Amadi). They were two of the best throws on the day in addition to the hookup to Shaheed. He looked sharp and comfortable out there, hitting four straight passes after the first was incomplete to Equanimeous St. Brown.

LAGNIAPPE

• In case you missed it, the Saints had several tryout players in attendance: Russell Gage, Camron Peterson, Jordan Smith, Roderic Teamer and Cameron Wire. Teamer and Wire are from Tulane, Smith from UAB, Peterson from Southern and Gage is from LSU.
• The Saints offense certainly caught a groove today, and they looked pretty good and comfortable for the most part. They were also working against simulated crowd noise that honestly sounded like a jet engine.
• Most of the offensive work was in end of half situations on Tuesday. The final team period session involved down and distance with under a minute to go and had the offense trying to move the ball for a field goal attempt.
• There was one play in 7s that saw Mason Tipton get wide open, as the Saints ran a 3-level concept in bunch formation. Carr went to Foster Moreau in the flats, but seeing that again, he'll have an easy hookup to Tipton for six.
• Chris Olave was in a red non-contact jersey again. This was the case last week after he had tweaked his shoulder during some workouts, but he has maintained that he's good to go and his actions on the field would echo that.
• Rashid Shaheed had a strong day, catching all three of his targets. He had a nice in route working against Paulson Adebo for an intermediate gain from Carr to go along with the deep hookup from Haener and short hookup from Carr.
• One of the biggest plays to help set up the field goal in Haener's end of half drive was a big hookup to Dallin Holker. He was wide open running across the field and the closest defender was Rezjohn Wright.
• Despite Olave beating Lattimore on the big play, he did get a nice pass break on his route late on Carr's final team drive in the end of half sequence.
• It was a good start for Blake Grupe, as he hit all five of his kicks ranging from an extra point to 44 yards. He then hit his field goal attempt in the end of half drive for Jake Haener from 47 yards. However, the last two kicks were from long distance with Spencer Rattler leading the offense down the field. The first miss was a bad one from 57 yards, and we'll just put it out there that Matt Hayball was thfe holder, for what that's worth. Grupe got another shot at it from a few yards up, but that kick was wide right. He finished 6-of-8 on the day.
• I'll say that Spencer Rattler looks a lot more comfortable out there. He was able to go through his progressions very quickly and made some really smart decisions out there. He sold a really nice play fake in team drills too. It looks like he's catching on more, which is what you want to see. He had some nice scrambles to keep the drive going in the end of half sequence.
• Taysom Hill got work at multiple positions again today, and he was the lead blocker on a James Robinson run in team with Spencer Rattler at quarterback. He also got work as the personal protector on the punt team and also played at tight end.
• Pete Werner stood out a bit today, notching two tackles for loss in the first team session, one on Alvin Kamara and then another on Jamaal Williams. It was a good day for him.
• Punt times for Lou Hedley today, as he worked from deep in his end zone to positive 48-yard-line territory: 3.53, 4.85, 4.38, 3.96, 4.18, 4.03, 4.28, 4.56, 4.78, 4.56 (that was questionable from our vantage spoint, could have been out of bounds earlier), 4.44, 4.56, 4.96.
• Personal protectors on the punt team today had Taysom Hill, Ugo Amadi and Jordan Mims. In general, there's several players who are getting more work on these units that you normally wouldn't expect.
• Allen's quote on Marshon Lattimore and Alvin Kamara being back out there: “Both of those guys being out here was a positive and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with them.
• Saints training camp will start on Wednesday, July 24. The rookies are reporting on July 21 and the veterans will join them and then a conditioning test will be held before practices get underway.
• Darren Rizzi brought up a pretty interesting point about the new kickoff rule today. Anything up until the 20-yard-line is considered out of bounds, and cited how teams used to put a foot out of bounds and then fielded the ball. Expect a lot of fun things regarding this in the preseason as teams get used to the new rule.
• Marshon Lattimore said in the locker room that he and Dennis Allen talked and 'we're good'. The two worked through a personal situation, as Lattimore said. Getting a locked in Lattimore will only make the Saints defense that much better.
• Caught up with offensive line coach John Benton after practice and asked him about the offensive line makeup. The main thing he stressed were athleticism. The splits will be a little wider and linemen will be a little farther off the ball. Speed is the name of the game. He pointed out players like Lucas Patrick and Justin Herron have been in a version of this offense. The key is for the linemen to learn as much as they can for when the pads come on.