The New Orleans Saints wrapped up the 2025 preseason with a 28-19 loss to the Denver Broncos on Saturday, led by familiar faces Sean Payton and Darren Rizzi.<\/p>\n
The week\u2019s standout player capped an extremely impressive preseason with another eye-opening performance. The breakout from the Saints\u2019 preseason finale loss to the Broncos is OL Torricelli Simpkins III.<\/p>\n
The UDFA out of South Carolina posted a 77.1 overall grade from Pro Football Focus (80.7 RBK and 67.1 PBK) after allowing just one hurry on 26 pass-blocking snaps against the Broncos. According to The 33rd Team, Simpkins\u2019 109 pass-protection snaps without allowing a sack were the most among rookie offensive linemen this preseason.<\/p>\n
With starting LG Trevor Penning dealing with a turf toe injury and both Will Clapp and Nick Saldiveri on season-ending injured reserve, Simpkins couldn\u2019t have thrived at a better time and may have even opened the door for the 23-year-old to potentially earn a starting role while Penning recovers.<\/p>\n
I still think there\u2019s a strong chance free-agent addition Dillon Radunz starts in Penning\u2019s place until he returns, but Simpkins has made a name for himself and given the coaching staff a tough decision to make.<\/p>\n
That said, it looks like New Orleans has found a gem in Torricelli Simpkins III, and if he continues to take advantage of this opportunity, the Saints may have just found a future starter with Penning hitting free agency this offseason after the team declined his fifth-year option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Saints wrapped up the 2025 preseason with a 28-19 loss to the Denver Broncos on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,896,55,26949,401,2588,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-316498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-orleans","10":"tag-new-orleans-saints","11":"tag-new-orleans-saints-preseason","12":"tag-new-orleans-saints-news","13":"tag-new-orleans-saints-roster","14":"tag-neworleans","15":"tag-neworleanssaints","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115089758428570583","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316498","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=316498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}