New Orleans Saints: 3 breakout candidates for 2021 season

New Orleans Saints who could breakout in 2021 – No. 2: Adam Trautman

Saints fans are willing to give Adam Trautman a pass for his lackluster numbers during his rookie season, as he had Jared Cook and Josh Hill ahead of him on the depth chart. That being said, with those two players gone, there are no more excuses for the third-round pick out of Dayton.

Trautman had just 15 catches for 171 yards and a touchdown last year, which wasn’t menacing by any means, but, as noted, he had two other tight ends to compete with for targets. Trautman is the starting tight end this year and while the Saints signed Nick Vannett as a backup, they didn’t do anything else at the position over the offseason.

Trautman could greatly benefit from having Jameis Winston as his quarterback and this is a huge opportunity for him to prove that he was worthy of going in the third round of last year’s draft. It won’t be hard to improve on his numbers from a season ago, but now that he’ll be the TE1, he has to blow those numbers out of the water.

Fortunately, the Saints offense should still be pretty respectable in 2021 and if Winston can be the 2019 version of himself (with fewer turnovers preferably), Trautman should have a good shot to become a household name this year.