If the New Orleans Saints choose Jaxson Dart with the ninth pick of the NFL Draft Thursday night, it would not be the first time the Saints have chosen a Rebel quarterback in the first round.
Surely, most readers already knew that, and we’ll get to the other time that happened later in this missive. But first, should the Saints take Dart? For that matter, should they use that first round pick for any quarterback? Or should they use that early pick to bolster another position where they need immediate help? After all, there are so many places they need help.
Me? I would take an offensive tackle or an edge rusher. Among the Saints’ many, many other needs, those are the most critical. Nearly every draft expert will tell you the 2025 draft is much richer in both edge rushers and those who block the edge than it is quarterbacks. You also can make the case that there’s no good reason to draft a quarterback until you can surround him with adequate protection.
The Saints have so many needs they might best be served to trade that ninth pick for more choices. New coach Kellen Moore inherits the NFL’s oldest team. The Saints desperately need to get younger and better at any number of positions. It would make some sense to trade the ninth pick for a pick later in the first and perhaps a couple additional picks in the second and third rounds. Or, perhaps use that ninth pick for an offensive tackle and then use their second round pick, the 40th overall, to pick a possible quarterback of the future.
We shall see. Interestingly, Dart is not even the highest Ole Miss player on most experts’ draft board. Both defensive tackle Walter Nolen and edge rusher Princely Umanmielen are rated above Dart when it comes to best available player no matter their position. I thought Nolen was hands down the best college football player – and the best potential pro – in Mississippi last season. If opponents did not double-team Nolen, he disrupted most everything they tried.
This year’s draft, which will take place in Green Bay over three days beginning Thursday night, will be in stark contrast to 1971, the first and only time the Saints drafted an Ole Miss quarterback in the first round. National TV cameras will focus on the highly choreographed first-round proceedings Thursday night. Most of the expected early picks will be present. A huge crowd will cheer and jeer the picks in person.
Back in ’71, Archie Manning nearly forgot there was a draft. Back then, the draft was held in January. None of the expected early choices were present. There was no TV broadcast and certainly no in-person crowd.
Manning, who had just married and honeymooned in Acapulco, was in Oxford, still attending Ole Miss classes. The draft, which lasted 17 rounds, began on a Monday morning. On Sunday afternoon, Manning received a call from the late, great Ole Miss sports information director Billy Gates. I’ll retell the story the way Archie told it to me.
Gates asked Archie if he remembered that the draft would begin on Monday morning.
“I guess I forgot,” Manning replied.
Gates reminded him that the Boston Patriots were picking first, the Saints second and the Houston Oilers third. “All three have called wanting to know where you will be. I’m pretty sure one of those three teams are going to pick you,” Gates told him. “Why don’t you come to my office tomorrow morning at 9, and I’ll let them all know you will be here.”
Archie said he would be there and that’s where he was when he heard the Patriots had taken Jim Plunkett, the 1970 Heisman Trophy winner out of Stanford, with the first pick of the draft. Moments later, Gates’ phone rang again. He answered, and then handed the phone to Manning.
John Mecom, the Saints’ owner, was on the line to tell him he was a Saint.
“I talked to Mecom for two minutes, then Mecom put general manager Vic Schwenk on the line and we talked, and then I talked to J.D. Roberts, the head coach, for a couple minutes more. I remember there was a photographer there from the Associated Press to take pictures. The whole thing lasted 15 minutes.”
And that was that.
“I made it on time to my 10 o’clock class,” Manning said.
He learned when he got home from class that nobody had taken Michigan All-American offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf, whom Manning had befriended at the Hula Bowl, in the first round.
“I was excited because I thought we were going to get Dan and I knew how good he was,” Manning said.
He knew – or at least he thought he knew – his blind side would be protected. And then came the news that with their second pick of the draft, the Saints had chosen Grambling offensive lineman Sam Holden.
Dierdorf, picked by the St. Louis Cardinals later in the second round, became a five-time All-Pro, one of the best-ever offensive tackles in NFL history. Holden, a New Orleans native, lasted one year and never started for the Saints.
There’s a lesson there for the current Saints. If you are going to pick an offensive tackle first, at least pick one who can play. And if you do choose Dart, please, please find him some protection.
