The New Orleans Saints\u2019 wide receivers aren\u2019t the tallest bunch. One quick look at them confirms as much. But they might be even shorter than you realize: The Saints are just one of two teams that don\u2019t have a wideout on the roster taller than 6-foot-2. The Minnesota Vikings are the other.<\/p>\n
Does it matter?<\/p>\n
Asked this question, Brandin Cooks starts to smirk during his answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot at all,\u201d Cooks said. \u201cAt the end of the day, wideout play is: \u2018Can you beat your guy in front of you?\u2019 And I think a lot of us can do that. There\u2019s a lot of narrative (here) that there\u2019s not a tall, not a big guy \u2014 but we all can separate.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the Saints may lack in size, they make up for in speed. And that speed undoubtedly helps create separation \u2014 as was the case Thursday when Tyler Shough hit Bub Means and Donovan Peoples-Jones on deep vertical routes for splashy touchdowns. In each case, Means and Peoples-Jones beat the opposing corner off the line and had enough distance to sprint into the end zone.<\/p>\n
And those are just the backups. Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed and Cooks \u2014 the team\u2019s projected top three receivers \u2014 are even faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve got some speed there that we\u2019ll try to emphasize,\u201d coach Kellen Moore said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll be on Moore and his staff to emphasize that in 2025. Last season, the Saints received little production from their wide receivers as injuries significantly impacted the position. The unit had just 135 catches for 1,833 yards \u2014 accounting for the second-fewest yards in the NFL. Only the New England Patriots were worse.<\/p>\n
Cedrick Wilson has seen what Moore is capable of. The Saints wide receiver was with Moore in Dallas when the coach served as the Cowboys\u2019 offensive coordinator and the unit was one of the league’s best. Wilson said New Orleans\u2019 new offense, as you\u2019d expect, is very similar to that scheme.<\/p>\n
Wilson, too, said he sees a difference in how teams treat height since he entered the league. As he enters his seventh season, Wilson recalled how the makeup of each receiver room varied as he went from one team to the next.<\/p>\n
Before joining the Saints in 2024, Wilson spent three seasons in Dallas and two years in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s too many teams in the league that\u2019s got that big, dominant guy that (they\u2019re) just throwing fade balls (to) no more,\u201d said Wilson, one of three Saints receivers at 6-foot-2. \u201cThere are a lot of offensive gurus that\u2019s calling the play calls, and you need guys out there that know what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
From that standpoint, the Saints believe they have receivers who excel at understanding the game’s intricacies. Moore, for instance, still remembers Olave\u2019s pre-draft meeting with Dallas at in 2022 \u2014 when the wide receiver impressed the room with his vivid collection of plays taught earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
Robert Prince, then Cowboys receivers coach, taught eight plays of Dallas\u2019 offense to Olave earlier in the morning and when they reconvened later that evening, the wide receiver was able to accurately draw them back and expand on the details.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very, very impressive,\u201d Moore said. \u201cA lot of guys understand their assignment, but he understands how it all ties together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the offseason, Moore said he\u2019d ideally like his wide receiver room to be similar to a basketball team \u2014 meaning a lineup of different shapes and sizes. But speaking Thursday, Moore said he felt there was size the Saints could utilize with Wilson, Means and Peoples-Jones.<\/p>\n
If there is a genuine concern about the size of the Saints\u2019 room, however, it may have to do more with a health perspective. Are their starters too small to hold up over the course of the year?<\/p>\n
Olave (6 feet, 187 pounds) has yet to play a full season in the NFL, and his third year was limited to eight games in 2024 because of several concussions. Shaheed (6 feet, 180 pounds) played in just six games, as his year was cut short due to a knee injury. Cooks (5-foot-10, 190 pounds) also missed seven games last year with knee problems when he was with the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
There could be on-the-field obstacles to overcome, as well. Tall receivers can \u2014 pardon the pun \u2014 come up big in the red zone and other contested-catch situations. In those gotta-have-it scenarios, the Saints\u2019 best answer may be throwing to a tight end like Juwan Johnson \u2014 who certainly doesn\u2019t lack size at 6-foot-4.<\/p>\n
Still, the Saints will give their wideouts chances to create space all on their own. And they have the speed and the footwork to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter the similarities that we got,\u201d Cooks said. \u201cWe can all play in any space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Saints\u2019 wide receivers aren\u2019t the tallest bunch. One quick look at them confirms as much.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89145,"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-89144","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\/114593613979694899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89144","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=89144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}