The New Orleans Saints are one of five teams under the most pressure in the NFL Draft, according to a list from Yardbarker's Clark Dalton, who said the best route for New Orleans was to draft Carnell Tate and maximize Tyler Shough's ceiling.
Dalton called Tate the best receiver prospect, a choice that would fit a team that spent free agency adding Travis Etienne, David Edwards, Kaden Elliss and Ryan Wright. He described Etienne and Edwards as two of the best players on the market at huge positions of need, while Elliss was framed as a defensive chess piece who can help both the run defense and pass rush.
That urgency comes after a finish that changed the tone around the franchise. The Saints won four of their last five games in the 2025 campaign, including a stretch that was the longest win streak since Sean Payton was the coach, and the back half of the season was defined by Shough's rise.
New Orleans also showed what that improvement looked like on the field. Two of those late-season wins came against the Tennessee Titans and New York Jets, and two others came against the Buccaneers and Panthers, with the Buccaneers described as a playoff team and the Panthers as a fringe playoff team. In a division that was not the strongest, the Saints' four-win stretch made the roster-building choices look more aggressive than reactive.
That is why the draft now feels tied directly to Shough. The Saints no longer appear to be searching only for a reset; they are trying to build around a quarterback who finished the season raising expectations, while also making sure they finally have a veteran punter they can trust after signing Wright. Dalton's ranking captures the pressure on New Orleans: this draft is less about adding talent in the abstract than about proving the late-season surge was the start of something real.