A ‘Way Too Early’ New Orleans Saints 53-man roster prediction

Let’s face it, no one really knows how the New Orleans Saints roster is going to look like in about three months. NFL teams are currently at the 90 player threshold, and will be asked to get down to 75 players before their final preseason game. Then, the front office will face some major decisions to get down to the final 53-man roster prior to Week 1 of the regular season.

Mickey Loomis, Sean Payton, and the rest of the front office are sure to face some extremely tough choices to assemble their 2015 squad. I’ll give you my very best guess as to what the New Orleans Saints roster will look around September. Keep in mind, injuries are sure to change this.

New players, both rookies and free agents, are denoted in bold.

A ‘Way Too Early’ New Orleans Saints 53-man roster prediction

Outside of some obvious players, nearly 75 percent of the roster figures to be an easy guess. However, narrowing down the final quarter of the 53-man roster is a lot tougher. When you have nine draft picks to account for, it’s extremely difficult to say they’ll all crack the final roster.

Roster Battle Notes

• I have Ryan Griffin beating out Luke McCown as the backup to Drew Brees, and the Saints will carry three quarterbacks again.
• Austin Johnson looked much better than free agent Erik Lorig last season, and a strong camp will pit Johnson as the favored starter. Monetarily speaking, this won’t hurt the Saints much by dropping Lorig.
• The Saints have three kickers on the roster, and it’s time for Shayne Graham to get edged out by one of the youngsters, and my bet is on Dustin Hopkins.
• Marcus Murphy figures to be a lot more appealing in terms of his abilities over Edwin Baker and Tim Hightower. However, I am rooting for Hightower making a comeback.
• Carrying five wide receivers seems fairly common for the Saints, and there were several instances where they only dressed four on game day. Nick Toon‘s time is up, as Brandon Coleman and R.J. Harris will edge him out.
• Carrying an extra tackle on the roster may be a bit excessive, but the Saints shelled out plenty of money to get Sean Hickey during the undrafted rookie free agency frenzy. The Saints may have more looks where they utilize an extra tackle, similar to what they used to do with Zach Strief.
• As much as we’ve heard Sean Payton talk about Damian Swann, I have to believe that veteran Kyle Wilson does enough to merit a roster spot over him as the nickel corner.
• Tyeler Davison will impress, and earn a defensive tackle spot with his versatility. I’m not thoroughly convinced that Brodrick Bunkley survives final cuts, and with the Saints not being a ‘base’ defense of any formation, could carry an extra DT.
• As far as the practice squad goes, I believe that the Saints will try to use as many spots on their current players, but I left three spots open for them to get players from other teams.