But Sean said all the quarterbacks are bad

It's early on Draft Day and people need to talk about things. 

The Saints own the 27th overall pick in this year’s draft, but they may have a higher pick before the night is over.

New Orleans has made multiple calls about making “a big leap up” in the first round, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports.

Typically if a team is looking to make a big leap up in the first round, that team is looking to draft a quarterback. So the Saints may think they can make a move for the heir apparent to Drew Brees.

Who would it be? It’s probably not realistic to think New Orleans could move up high enough to get Baker Mayfield or Sam Darnold. Josh Allen, Josh Rosen or Lamar Jackson might be available with a pick somewhere in the range that the Saints could go up and get.

Rapaport tends to make things up, especially when it comes to the Saints, so that might be what this is.  It also might just be that this is the morning when everybody calls everybody to gauge asking prices on potential trades anyway so, technically, it is very likely true to say the Saints are doing that.

Anyway, the only compelling reason to believe the Saints might move up to take a quarterback is the fact that Sean Payton has spent the last week negging all of them in the media.  So the possibility is at least worth considering.  I'm as terrible at reading tea leaves as any sports pundit (except maybe Fletcher Mackel) so take this for what it's worth.  But if they're gonna go up and get a guy it will most likely be Lamar Jackson or Baker Mayfield.  And even then, I think they won't move unless the guy they're after slides to like the 20th pick. Mayfield could be the first overall pick so maybe just keep an eye on Jackson. (Caveat: Jackson did lose to LSU in a bowl game so just keep that in mind as well.)

Assuming they don't trade up, though, what happens at pick 27?  Well, for weeks and weeks, people were writing about Penn State tight end Mike Gesicki.  And then they stopped writing about him and started writing about South Caroline tight end Hayden Hurst.  In this morning's Advocate, the beat writers guessing at the Saints' first round pick don't mention either one. Joel Erickson does put South Dakota's Dallas Goedert on his short list but he isn't his top choice.  It would be unusual, even for the Saints who could definitely use one, to take a tight end in the first round and I think everyone kind of knows that.

Another interesting thing about the way the draft chatter has shifted has been the way focus has moved away from defense. That might have something to do with free agency. Kurt Coleman and Demario Davis make the needs somewhat less obvious. Clearly, the Saints would like to pick up a pass rusher but hey who wouldn't? At 27, they probably aren't going to find what they're looking for.  (Arden Key will still be hanging around in the fourth round or later anyway.)  I do like what Erickson and Underhill have to say about there never being enough cornerbacks.  They both zero in on Iowa's Josh Jackson who seems to be the hot topic today at NOLA.com as well. Eight interceptions in 2017 is hard to ignore.

Still, I think, as I often tend to think, that the most glaring need on this roster is offensive line depth. The starters are very good all the way across but how many games did the starting unit play together last season? (I'm sure this is something we can look up. I am too lazy to do it.) With Senio Kelemete gone, I'm not sure they have the flexibilty to handle even one injury let alone two or more at one time.   Rest assured, Terron Armstead is going to miss 4 to 6 games in any given year. Max Unger is 32 years old. They brought Jermon Bushrod back from the dead in case they need to prop something up over where Armstead is supposed to be standing.  That should not make anybody feel too confident.

So let's draft an offensive lineman.  In that Advocate blurb I keep mentioning because it was in today's paper, Joel Erickson says he likes Arkansas G/C Frank Ragnow. That's fine. Potentially that gives you more flexibility and depth at three positions if we assume they want to keep sliding Andrus Peat out to tackle when necessary.   But I went shopping for tackles as well and I found this. 

Chukwuma Okorafor (pronounced chuck-WOO-muh oh-KOR-uh-for) and his family immigrated from Botswana to the United States in 2010, so he got a late start on learning football. Despite eventually getting recruited by football's biggest powers, he stayed in Michigan to play for Head Coach P.J. Fleck at WMU. Okorafor played as a reserve in 12 games in 2014, then started every game at right tackle as a sophomore. He switched to left tackle for his junior year after the departure of Willie Beavers for the NFL, earning first-team All-MAC honors for his efforts, using his wide body and length to protect the quarterback and blast holes for running back. Okorafor received numerous All-American accolades and a first-team all-conference nod for his play as a senior in 12 starts at the left tackle spot.

Here we have a guy whose family immigrated to the US, who "got a late start" learning football, and who played at a mid level MAC school.  That checks a lot of boxes on the generic Saints draft prospect profile. Also his name is Okorafor which is very close to being Okafor which is something the New Orleans already has on the defense and on the basketball team.  Also, when I mentioned all of this on Twitter, everybody immediately started calling him Mr. Okra and now I'm more convinced than ever this is our guy.

That is, unless Matt Ryan's cousin is available in which case the Saints may consider going that way.  They've had cousins of Falcons QBs on the team before and it's worked out pretty okay.