First, he didn’t speak to the Saints other than at the NFL Combine. The Covid pandemic eliminated face-to-face meetings, so there would be no visit to the facility or attendance on pro day.<\/p>\n
Second, New Orleans had an outstanding player (Erik McCoy) occupying the position (center) that Ruiz played.<\/p>\n
“I had a workout scheduled with the Saints but it was canceled because of Covid,” Ruiz said. “I didn’t have any visits; everything was on Zoom.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t do an interview with the Saints on Zoom, it was just at the Combine. And then when I got that call, that’s really why I was so shocked because that whole process \u2013 it was Covid, I was talking to pretty much every other team \u2013 and it was just all inside.”<\/p>\n
Sprinkle in a hefty dose of emotion, too.<\/p>\n
Ruiz lost his father at the age of 8; Cesar Edwin Ruiz was killed when he was struck by a motorist while helping a driver change tires.<\/p>\n
“You go through losing a parent and going through so much in your life, and to be able to overcome all those things and reach that goal you’ve been working toward your whole life, is something that a lot of kids don’t get to do,” Ruiz said. “A lot of people have those dreams and it’s a very, very, very slim amount that get to do it. It felt like a movie. It was like, ‘Wow, this is real, this is happening right now.'”<\/p>\n
What did not happen was Ruiz receiving the congratulatory dap-up and bro hug from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell; because of Covid there was no in-person draft in 2020 so Ruiz stayed home with his family in Mount Laurel, N.J.<\/p>\n
“I know I got the invite in the mail to go to Las Vegas, I remember it was supposed to be a big deal,” he said or the original plans for the 2020 draft before Covid shut down the country in March. “We were supposed to be on a boat after we got picked.<\/p>\n
“But at the same time, I didn’t think I was going to be there. I don’t think I would have wanted to be there anyway, I would have spent a bunch of time with my family and enjoyed that moment with my loved ones. I think I would have still done what I did, but just with more people, of course.<\/p>\n
“The NFL sent us the entire video kit to film our draft reactions. It was an iPhone, a tripod, a microphone. But it all worked out, though. It was definitely a fun time \u2013 not Covid, the draft day.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First, he didn’t speak to the Saints other than at the NFL Combine. The Covid pandemic eliminated face-to-face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[39,11147,19,7,81,896,55,2572,2571,3051,6,1647,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-25187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-2025-draft","9":"tag-cesar-ruiz","10":"tag-draft","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-latest-news","13":"tag-new-orleans","14":"tag-new-orleans-saints","15":"tag-neworleans","16":"tag-neworleanssaints","17":"tag-news-john-deshazier","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-roster","20":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114454195710215517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}