Thanks for submitting your New Orleans Saints questions to me on Twitter. Send them anytime @MikeTriplett.
@MikeTriplett Was the demotion of Vacarro more a result of poor play or poor coaching usage?
— Big E (@TAFKA_Lucky) February 5, 2015@MikeTriplett: Is it the coaches or the players? That's a question that will always be impossible to truly answer - like the chicken vs. the egg. And you could really take out Kenny Vaccaro's name and insert a dozen guys that underachieved in 2014.
Players, including Vaccaro, insisted all year that it was on them, that they have to make plays, and they passionately defended defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. But then again, some players passionately criticized former defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo for not putting them in positions to succeed. In either case, it's usually a combination of the two.
As for Vaccaro specifically, he accepted plenty of blame for his own shortcomings, but he also said a lot of it had to do with his struggles to adjust to the full-time strong safety role after he had been used as a nickelback as a rookie and in college. It was a switch that Vaccaro said he wanted - he assumed he would thrive by focusing on just one position instead of moving all over the field. But he said late in the season that he and Ryan both think more of an "ADD" role might suit him better.
I also think Vaccaro suffered from trying to hit too many home runs and acting before diagnosing sometimes, which led to some missed assignments. I expect that both he and Ryan will learn valuable lessons from what didn't work this past season.
@MikeTriplett Do you think the Saints success with udfa's is a direct result of their lack of picks and missing on the ones they make?
— Leo (@leov4reals) February 6, 2015@MikeTriplett: There's definitely a connection there. Because the Saints have averaged only 5.4 draft picks per year since 2008, that offers more opportunities for undrafted rookies to make the roster.
But I don't think that's a bad thing. You could look at it both ways - as cause or effect. The Saints have proven over those years that there is some real quality to be found among those undrafted gems. And that's helped shape their philosophy when it comes to aggressively trading up in the draft (as they did with Brandin Cooks last year) instead of feeling compelled to stockpile picks.
As for the idea that the Saints have been missing on the draft picks they do make, I'm going to dig deeper into their success rate before this year's draft. You could roughly say that they've missed on about two of those 5.4 picks per year. I'm just not sure where that ranks compared to the league average.
@MikeTriplett Do you think Stinchcomb was a better right tackle than Zack Strief is today?
— Dustin Yager (@DustinYager1) February 5, 2015@MikeTriplett: That's an extremely close comparison. I wasn't doing regular film studies when I covered Jon Stinchcomb, so I don't feel like I have quite as good of a grasp on his strengths and weaknesses. But I think there are a lot of similarities in that neither was ever dominant, but both are/were very good and versatile as run-blockers, pass-protectors and blockers in the screen game.
Stinchcomb got the rare recognition of a Pro Bowl invitation as a right tackle in 2009, in part because the Saints' entire offense was so impressive that year. But Zach Strief was a big part of an even better offense in 2011, in his first year in the starting role. I think Strief is really underrated, in part because he struggled quite a bit in 2012. But he bounced back from that season and has arguably been New Orleans' steadiest offensive lineman in each of the past two years.
"@MikeTriplett: #Saints mailbag question: Any way to project what compensatory draft picks are coming (if any)? When is that announced? Thx
— Michael (@WhoDatMichael) February 5, 2015@MikeTriplett: The exact formula has always been a mystery, but the basic idea is that compensatory picks are awarded to teams who lose "more or better" qualifying free agents than they acquire. They're usually announced in late March.
My guess is the Saints won't get any compensatory picks. If my understanding of the rules is correct, they signed three qualifying free agents (Jairus Byrd, Erik Lorig and Champ Bailey) and lost three (Malcolm Jenkins, Brian de la Puente and Charles Brown). The guys they released and traded don't count. Neither do the restricted free agents they didn't tender (Jed Collins and Tom Johnson).
However, the Saints themselves seemed to think that a compensatory pick might be possible since they waited until after June 1 to sign free agents Jonathan Goodwin and Brandon Deaderick - in part because free agents signed after June 1 don't count as part of the formula. So we'll see.
