The New Orleans Saints are still trying to determine the role of Marcus Davenport in the season after he missed out practice in three weeks of the team’s training camp due to a groin injury. Davenport has played in fifteen snaps in the previous week’s preseason game, where he made three tackles, one for loss along with a half sack. However, the first-round draft pick remains to be behind, said Dennis Allen, the Saints defensive coordinator.
“I think that’s still to be determined,” Allen said referring to Davenport’s role in the season, through Times-Picayune’s Josh Katzenstein. “We drafted this guy to be an every-down player, so that’s what we’re working to do, to try to get him ready to do that. We’ll continue to put him in those situations, and hopefully, he’ll be ready to answer the challenge.”
Several rookie edge rushers have a successful edge being situational pass rushers as it makes it makes an otherwise challenging job simple. Besides, even most of the best defensive ends rotate heavily, so it is quite logical for the team coaches to use the rookies in case of situations when they just have to be after the quarterback.
Alex Okafor seems to be healthy enough to start at the right defensive end while Cameron Jordan will be starting at the left defensive end. On the other hand, Trey Hendrickson might also play a major role, which thus makes it difficult to know how much Davenport will be able to contribute at the start of this season.
Sean Payton, the Saints coach, said that Davenport would be playing a lot in Thursday’s preseason finale held against the team Los Angeles Rams after the rookie defensive end had missed out the initial two exhibition games. One might see Davenport using the work, and so, the Saints are eagerly looking forward to having a better hold on what the rookie can do this season.
