Saints leaning into strength of WR room by tripling down on speed after Trey Palmer waiver claim

By the time their October 17th game vs the Broncos rolled around last year the Saints were down both of their playmaking deep threats. Rashid Shaheed had just been shut down for the season after suffering a knee injury, and Chris Olave was dealing with the effects of a concussion suffered in Week 6 vs the Chiefs.

Their primary backup, Mason Tipton, gave an admirable performance with 6 receptions on 9 targets for 45 yards, but his success didn't come from stretching the field. The Saints would luck up and sign the recently released Marquez Valdes-Scantling, but there was a very clear lesson being taught by the football Gods.

If you're going to build a system around key players or traits the depth behind them, better be sufficient.

So, it came as no surprise the Saints and HC Kellen Moore sought to sign veteran deep threat Brandin Cooks to pair with the returning Tipton to make sure that should they lose Shaheed or Olave again in any capacity, it wouldn't break the offense.

Despite the emergence of Tipton as a big play threat during pre-season the Saints would prove vigilant in adding to a strength by putting in a claim for former Buccaneer's wide receiver Trey Palmer.

Palmer, whom they should remember fondly, torched them for 84 yards and a TD in a December 2023 match-up, averaging a whopping 21 ypc in the process.

"There's a lot of speed in that room, and certainly it's something that we obviously have to lean into, and as we build our plans in the coming weeks, certainly it's something that's popped up during training camp, their ability to get down field, and it's something we'll have to utilize for sure," said Kellen Moore

Moore shied away from confirming if it was the plan in the follow-up question, yet even if it wasn't a conscious objective, plenty of the collective decision makers were also on last year's staff and it's still possible it was subconsciously driven at an organizational level.

Regardless, I'd say the lesson was learned.