Young is raw. He was not invited to any of the combines so he is an unknown. Word is that he had some great private workouts. I am hoping Mechem does not take as long to develop as Stallworth. I really like the idea of picking Chris Leak in a later round.
I always sit back and laugh at a lot of Saints fans, especially over at SR.com. There seems to be some belief that if you've never heard of the guy, he's a horrible pick. After last season, I'm willing to give the FO the benefit of the doubt. The bottom line is that there is SO much that goes into analyzing all these players that there is a whole lot that we don't know that the FO does know. One big thing is the character issue - Payton simply will not take a chance on a great talent if he has questionable character issues, which is something you've got to respect. I will say that I questioned some of these picks, but after doing a little research, I realized that these are all guys that could either 1) step in and start after a few years or 2) provide excellent depth. I really like the Robert Meachem pick and Usama Young has been a fast riser. You can never have too much depth on the O-line and I think Alleman could be the Jahri Evans of this year's draft. Also, I don't know where the whole "our defensive players suck" feeling came from. We had the number 11 ranked defense in the NFL! Sure, we got burned in the secondary on several occasions, but with Harper coming back and the signing of Jason David (whose 3 years stats are nearly identical to Asante Samuel), we should have fixed that problem. The addition of Brian Simmons to what became a solid linebacking corps was great, as well. I would liked to have see us pick up a linebacker or DT, but like I said before, there is obviously something that Payton and Co. know that we don't. I think we're going to be more than fine this season.
