What acquiring Davon Godchaux means for the Saints, how he fits and more.
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00:00Well, the Norland Saints are on the board, so to speak, after a flurry of activity that
00:05happened across the NFL on Saturday and Sunday.
00:09Crazy times, but the Saints are players now.
00:12Welcome back to another episode of 2nd and Saints.
00:14John Hendricks of Athlon Sports covering the team on a daily basis, all that fun stuff.
00:19Thank you for joining and tuning in.
00:20Obviously the big news that we want to talk about on Monday morning early, likely before
00:25some of you guys woke up, or I know I was just waking up and saw that the Saints had
00:30traded with the Patriots to acquire nose tackle, defensive tackle, whatever you want to call
00:35it.
00:36Devon Godshaw.
00:37So in exchange for a seventh round pick.
00:38So great move for New Orleans, first and foremost, obviously he was somebody that was given the
00:45option to explored trade, uh, you know, at the end of February because of Mike Rabel
00:50coming in new defensive scheme, they're clearly going to move on and such.
00:54But Godshaw is a Plaquemine, Louisiana native LSU guy.
00:59He's going to turn 31 in November, but he's somebody that is a stout run defender.
01:03Uh, next gen stat second among all defensive tackles, 94.4% tackle rate.
01:09I mean, that's, that's pretty good.
01:10You know, when you look at that and say, okay, the Saints weren't particularly good last
01:16year, obviously on defense and they had most all of their starters.
01:19Now there's a variety of reasons that go into that, right?
01:22So it was Dennis Allen scheme, him getting fired mid season, uh, lack of development
01:27on the defensive line from Todd Granum.
01:29I mean, there's all sorts of ways you can point the finger, but the reality is the results.
01:34The Saints had the 31st worst or 31st ranked run defense in 2024.
01:39They were giving up 141.4 yards a game on the ground.
01:43Panthers were the only team that was worse than them 5.77 yards a game.
01:47I mean, I play on their 28th and they were giving up 300, nearly 380 yards a game, uh,
01:54on defense, which is ranked 30th.
01:55So look, Kelemore coming in here, Brandon Staley running the defense.
02:00We've obviously talked about, there's going to be a scheme shift here with the Saints
02:05play like a base three, three or base three, four defense.
02:08They are going to place a nickel, but they're going to look at three down linemen.
02:12That's what we're anticipating here for the Saints.
02:14And so Devon Godshaw is going to go in that nose tackle spot.
02:19Now this gives the team, you know, a lot of options now on the defensive tackle, new defensive
02:24line coach Bo Davis coming over from LSU.
02:27Really interested to see what he brings to the table, but now you're probably looking
02:30at some odd men out, right?
02:31Like depending on how this works out.
02:33So now it gives them Colin Saunders, Nathan Shepherd, uh, Brian Brzee, John Ridgeway,
02:39the third Christian Boyd, and obviously you've got Godshaw in there in the mix as well.
02:43So I don't know, you know, we'll see how it obviously plays out.
02:47And it's interesting because the Saints have got to, to figure out a way to be better in
02:53the trenches.
02:54And this is a way for, you know, Kellen Moore to kind of obviously start building his brand
02:59in the trenches, right?
03:00The Saints have made some, some lower risk type things, something that hasn't obviously
03:04set the world on fire, you know, re-signing Dante Pettis, uh, and then obviously picking
03:08up the, the exclusive rights free agent tag for Nephi's soul, which is a no brainer, right?
03:13But for new Orleans, getting a defensive tackle, uh, specifically a nose tackle to plug in
03:19there, be a run defender, uh, that's something that the Saints have got to have.
03:23And they haven't had that in a long time, right?
03:25Like, and you think about where the Saints were, I think they've missed a guy in the
03:30middle since they had shipped Malcolm Brown off to the Jaguars.
03:33And so I think they were, that's kind of when you started seeing the run defense, I think
03:38kind of take a little bit of a turn, not that Malcolm Brown was absolutely perfect
03:42at his job and all this other stuff.
03:44But I think that's kind of where things kind of took a nosedive for the Saints.
03:47And obviously with the running quarterback, all those things, those elements that they've
03:50had struggles with and such, again, God Charles, somebody that can come in, he still has a
03:55lot of football left in him.
03:57I, this is a, presumably a two year type window for him, right?
04:01They're going to have to rework his deal.
04:03He's only a $5 million cap it Saints are still going to have to do some restructuring.
04:07So look for guys like Carl Granderson, you know, Cesar Ruiz, Alvin Kamara, Pete Warner,
04:12there's all sorts of players that they can go to, to potentially get some restructure
04:16cap relief.
04:17They got to figure out what they're doing with DeMario Davis.
04:20As far as the contract goes, they don't necessarily have to touch him.
04:23Cam Jordan is a big one, tired Matthew as well, but again, $4 million base salary, not
04:28really that bad for a guy who plays on a nose tackle, probably going to see a big rotation.
04:33But I think that's the thing is you look at the Saints and their defense, this is an
04:37area where they just simply have to be better, right?
04:39Like again, on both sides of the ball on offense, they have to be better on the interior.
04:44They do have to get some better play, more consistent from the tackles.
04:47But I feel pretty good about where things are going with Taliesin and Trevor pinning.
04:52But you know, with the interior specifically, you know, you got to be available first of
04:56all, not having Eric McCoy, huge loss.
04:59And then they try to fill in with Shane Lemieux and then he gets hurt and stuff.
05:02And then Lucas Patrick was hurt next out of Barry.
05:05So availability is obviously a huge thing.
05:06But for the defense specifically, that has been their bread and butter for years, right?
05:11Like it took the shift where the Saints defense was so bad and you had Drew Brees on offense
05:15and they were so good, like elite, if you will.
05:18And then, you know, it had a little bit of a paradigm shift in 2017.
05:22Not that the Saints were good on offense.
05:24They were still fantastic on offense, but defense finally started to catch up.
05:28They were getting turnovers.
05:29They were stopping opponents.
05:31They were just doing the things necessary and a lot of that had to do with Dennis Allen.
05:35That's one of the reasons why they had so much appeal going back to him and, you know,
05:39for continuity and such.
05:40But it just didn't work out.
05:41But you know, getting a guy like Godshaw in the middle again, whether they run like a
05:46base three, three or base three, four, which is what we expect in a Brandon Staley's defense.
05:51You know, it's got to work right.
05:53Like I don't know if it'll happen overnight, but a guy like Godshaw in the middle and that
05:57no spot is going to allow you to be able to do that.
06:02Right.
06:03And of course, they could still draft.
06:04They could still do free agency.
06:06What does this mean for some of their veterans?
06:07You know, what do they do with that?
06:09That's another thing to figure out.
06:11How do they actually comprise the three down linemen that are going to be there on that
06:16base?
06:17What does that rotation look like?
06:18You know what?
06:19Who's going to be in for pass rush situations like there's all those things that have to
06:22be figured out.
06:23We're in March, March 10th, Monday, and the new league year starts on March 12th, Wednesday
06:27at three o'clock in the afternoon central time.
06:30And so a lot of ways are a lot of months to go before we have to figure this thing out.
06:35Right.
06:36But the thing is, exciting saints not having to get up a lot of compensation.
06:40The seventh round pick.
06:42It's not known if it's this year or next year.
06:44That's something that we'll figure out later.
06:45But that is not a big, big compensation, right?
06:50Like that's that's no brainer compensation, right?
06:53You're going to take that almost every day.
06:54And just like DK Metcalf to say Seahawks wanted a first and the third name only get up a second.
06:59Right.
07:00I mean, that's something Ross and I talked about.
07:02There's no way that we're going to get a first and third and such.
07:04But DK also got paid too.
07:06So maybe that had something to do with it.
07:08I don't know.
07:09But again, good move for the saints.
07:11A good way to start things before the new league year gets here.
07:15Lot more restructures, a lot more contract tweaking that's going to be expected with
07:19the Drew Brees thing.
07:21We can go back on past video and get my thoughts on that one.
07:24But, you know, that was a big domino fall as far as the restructure goes there.
07:28And again, that was something that was always built into the contract.
07:31Saints will have to do some roster management.
07:33They'll have to do some accounting management.
07:35But a good move for the Saints to start off before we get to the league year, new league
07:41year, quote unquote.
07:42And I think the fans should be really happy about him.
07:45Gotcha.
07:46Coming back to Louisiana.
07:47That's to be a good one.
07:48So hopefully it works out.
07:50Of course, on paper, it looks good.
07:53Of course, you know, when you're paper champions, all this other stuff does not necessarily
07:56get anything for you.
07:58Right.
07:59But a good, exciting move, at least for New Orleans, starting to go in the right direction.
08:04So we'll have plenty more.
08:05Keep it tuned to second.
08:06The Saints don't forget to hit the like and subscribe button.
08:09Check out Athlon Sports, all of our Saints coverage over there.
08:12And then check out Ross's work on locked on Saints and Louisiana Sports dot net.
08:16On behalf of him, John Hendricks, we will have a preview show before the league year
08:20gets here.
08:22Stay tuned for that.
08:23Thanks so much for your time.