Saints OTAs: Observations, Takeaways, Practice Notes

The Saints were back at it again on Tuesday for another round of OTAs. Here's all of my observations, takeaways, and practice notes from the session.

The Saints were back at it again on Tuesday for another round of OTAs. The weather was nice out until it wasn't, as we were forced to move indoors from a lightning threat in the area. Regardless, we got plenty of nuggets and items to pass along from practice.

John Hendrix - Saints OTAs, May 30

John Hendrix - Saints OTAs, May 30

John Hendrix - Saints OTAs, May 30

John Hendrix - Saints OTAs, May 30

John Hendrix - Saints OTAs, May 30

John Hendrix - Saints OTAs, May 30

Observations and Takeaways from Practice

ATTENDANCE: Demario Davis and J.T. Gray were among those players who returned to the mix. Davis has been at the facility doing workouts, but officially got back onto the field. Among those not spotted today included 14 players: Taysom Hill, Tre'Quan Smith, Michael Thomas, Bradley Roby, Marshon Lattimore, Lonnie Johnson Jr., Paulson Adebo, Tyrann Mathieu, Alvin Kamara, Ryan Ramczyk, James Hurst, Andrus Peat, James Washington, and Nathan Shepherd.

Nick Saldiveri was inside doing work with a medicine ball, so that's an encouraging sign. Kendre Miller, Eno Benjamin, Cesar Ruiz, Trevor Penning, and Miller Forristall were all present, but not participating.

STARTING LINEUP: With a good bit of familiar players out, here's how the starting looks looked on offense and defense. The offensive line (left to right) had Landon Young, Lewis Kidd, Erik McCoy, Calvin Throckmorton, and Storm Norton. Specialists included Jamaal Williams, Rashid Shaheed, Chris Olave, Juwan Johnson, Foster Moreau, and Bryan Edwards.

Defensively, the Saints rolled a couple of looks, including nickel coverage with Alontae Taylor in the slot. Their base 4-3 look included Cam Jordan, Khalen Saunders, Malcolm Roach, and Carl Granderson along the line with Zack Baun, Demario Davis, and Pete Werner at linebacker. Isaac Yiadom and Alontae Taylor were at corner, with Marcus Maye and J.T. Gray at safety. When Taylor moved to the slot, Troy Pride came in for him on the outside.

SHAHEED STOCK UP: Rashid Shaheed had another impressive outing, as he and Chris Olave were two of the easy standouts from practice. However, Shaheed stole the show with two of the best plays of the day. The first came in 7-on-7 when he made a one-handed grab look all too easy on a crossing route from Derek Carr with Alontae Taylor working again him. The second was in team drills when Derek Carr hit him deep working against Isaac Yiadom and J.T. Gray. He found the soft spot in the coverage and it was a big play that likely would have found the end zone or at least set them up deep in the red zone.

QUARTERBACK PERFORMANCE: We only got to see three snaps in team from Derek Carr. However, when we observed 7-on-7, Derek Carr went 4-of-6 and threw his first interception (more on that shortly), Jameis Winston was 2-of-4, and Jake Haener went 1-of-2. Carr went 3-of-3 in team.

DRILL BREAKDOWN: This is where Olave and Shaheed shined. The first pass Carr had in 7-on-7 saw him try Keith Kirkwood deep down the left sideline, but they couldn't connect. After the one-handed crosser to Shaheed, Carr hit Chris Olave on back-to-back plays working against Marcus Maye and Alontae Taylor. Lucas Krull caught the next one in the flats, and the final pass saw Carr get picked by Troy Pride. It was a great play defensively for the Saints, who had great coverage. In particular, Zack Baun had excellent coverage working against Bryan Edwards in the middle which led to Carr rolling out (in fairness, a sack would have likely been the result) where he targeted Juwan Johnson deep, but Pride made a great play on the ball to pick it off.

For Winston's reps, he had a strong deep throw to connect with Malik Flowers, but a nice play by Ugo Amadi saw the ball get punched out and recovered by the defense. He tried A.T. Perry on the next play, but the ball was low. Winston bounced back by hitting Shaq Davis on a short completion, and then Adrian Frye had a nice pass breakup on the next rep intended for Perry.

For Haener's two reps, he hit Shaheed on a curl route over the middle working against Amadi and Smoke Monday, and his second rep was a throwaway and would have resulted in a sack as a result of the good coverage by the Saints defense.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

• With other running backs being out, Kirk Merritt once again got work with the group.
• Joe Woods continues to have a very hands-on approach with the defensive backs. You can see the value of experience there between him, Marcus Robertson, and then Dennis Allen's familiarity with the position.
• Jahri Evans and Cesar Ruiz were talking a good bit during drills. Evans is an assistant to Doug Marrone, and is going to provide a big boost to the players this season.
• Lewis Kidd and Mark Evans were getting some tackle work in with Kevin Carberry and the position group.
• Trevor Penning may not be in a position to practice right now in recovering from Lisfranc surgery, but he's active and mimicking motions and movement in drills.
• I really love the zip on Jake Haener's throws. We talk a lot about arm strength and zip, and Haener has it. I never got as much of that with Ian Book.
• Special teams is a major part of the game, and some updates to pass along for there would be that Kawaan Baker, Isaac Yiadom, A.T. Perry, and Alontae Taylor were among those handling gunner and jammer duties outside of J.T. Gray. Smoke Monday and Keith Kirkwood were getting work as the personal protector during punts.
• Lou Hedley and Blake Grupe got some work today as the specialists. Hedley had a couple of impressive punts inside the 20-yard-line, but was slightly inconsistent working indoors. Grupe missed a few field goals, at least three by my count, in his first work to close out practice.
• The quarterbacks and receivers put in some work after practice while Dennis Allen was speaking.

We'll have plenty more from today, so stay tuned with Saints News Network for more.