{"id":394443,"date":"2025-09-24T23:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T23:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/394443\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T23:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T23:37:09","slug":"quincy-rileys-development-reflects-saints-youth-movement-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/394443\/","title":{"rendered":"Quincy Riley’s development reflects Saints’ youth movement | Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before he was hired to coach the New Orleans Saints, Kellen Moore<\/a> was interviewed thoroughly about his plan to develop players.<\/p>\n

General manager Mickey Loomis wanted to know the candidate\u2019s exact way of bringing prospects along \u2014 particularly once the regular season got rolling and on-the-field snaps would be hard to come by if they were in a backup role.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery coach has a development program,\u201d Loomis said last month. \u201cThey do. But some are more effective than others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entering the fourth week of the season, the Saints are starting to see Moore\u2019s plan in action.<\/p>\n

Look no further than Quincy Riley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Riley, a fourth-round cornerback, played 18 defensive snaps in Sunday\u2019s blowout loss to the Seattle Seahawks. But the rookie\u2019s playing time did not solely come late in the fourth quarter when the Saints pulled their starters for a game well out of reach. Rather, they sprinkled him in for two snaps in the second quarter. And then, when he did enter in the fourth quarter, Riley got to play with the majority of the team\u2019s first string.<\/p>\n

Moore said the Saints approached the Seahawks game with the intention of giving Riley more playing time, similar to how the team featured third-round defensive lineman Vernon Broughton in Week 2. Broughton then suffered a season-ending hip injury, but Moore said the original idea was to increase his workload as the season progressed.<\/p>\n

Moore liked what he saw from Riley.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these guys have different times, and we\u2019re trying to get as many exposures as we can for those young guys in particular because these are long seasons,\u201d Moore said. \u201cA lot of guys are going to play. I thought Quincy went in there and did some good things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore was encouraged by how Riley forced Seahawks running back George Holani to fumble, leading to a Saints’ recovery. The first-year coach knew that the cornerback had a knack for securing the ball in the passing game \u2014 Riley had eight career interceptions at Louisville \u2014 but Moore indicated the Saints were hoping to see that kind of progress in the run game. On that play, Riley fit the run perfectly to jar the ball loose.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really good example of his growth,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n

The Saints needed to see that growth before increasing the Riley’s responsibilities, which is partly why veteran Isaac Yiadom was named a starter heading into the season. In training camp, Yiadom rarely seemed in danger of losing his spot as the coaching staff did not rotate Riley in with the first team.<\/p>\n

Riley\u2019s lack of first-team reps in camp was intentional for another reason. As the summer progressed, Moore began rotating the first-team offense against the second-team defense, and vice versa. And that, coaches believed, would contribute to the development of the younger players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to get Quincy the reps against our best players because that\u2019s the way he\u2019s going to improve the most,\u201d defensive coordinator Brandon Staley said. \u201cOur young players in training camp got more reps than anyone on our entire defense, all of our rookies. Quincy\u2019s improved a lot since he\u2019s been here.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the fascinating subplots of the next few weeks is whether Riley works his way into a starting role.<\/p>\n

With the Saints\u2019 0-3 and at the beginning of a seeming rebuild, there is a natural tendency to wonder if, or when, Moore and his staff will completely lean into a full-on youth movement. The Saints already have first-round tackle Kelvin Banks and third-round safety Jonas Sanker as full-time starters.<\/p>\n

Riley\u2019s situation also could be complicated by factors outside of his control. On the surface, the Saints may be incentivized to play him sooner rather than later to negate whether Yiadom would qualify as a compensatory free agent.<\/p>\n

According to Over The Cap\u2019s Nick Korte, the Saints may miss out on a fourth-round compensatory pick for Paulson Adebo\u2019s departure if Yiadom plays more than 35% of the snaps. Adebo left in free agency to join the New York Giants, while Yiadom signed a three-year, $9 million contract to return to the Saints.<\/p>\n

In Korte\u2019s projection, the Saints aren\u2019t slated to have any comp picks because they lost the same number of qualified players (three) as the ones they signed. The NFL annually awards additional draft picks to teams based on the outcomes of free agency.<\/p>\n

Yiadom has played nearly 66% of the defense\u2019s snaps through three games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the coaches are thinking, \u2018Yo, let\u2019s do this so we can get a pick,\u2019 \u201d Yiadom said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to win today. We\u2019re trying to win Sundays, so I would be surprised if that goes into anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yiadom understands that if Riley plays, it would likely be at the expense of his playing time. But the cornerback embraces playing the role of a mentor, adding he\u2019ll do whatever it takes to win.<\/p>\n

Yiadom said he would first self-analyze how he could have done better, if he’s benched.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, they\u2019re going to have to develop their players,\u201d Yiadom said. \u201cWhenever that point is, as a vet, you\u2019ve just got to bring them along. Just like my vets handled me, taught me the game, that\u2019s the same thing I\u2019mma do, to teach him the game, help him grow and make sure that when he do get out there, he\u2019s helping us win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before he was hired to coach the New Orleans Saints, Kellen Moore was interviewed thoroughly about his plan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,4095,896,55,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-394443","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-hardwall","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-saints","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanssaints","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115261908273902241","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394443","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=394443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}