I guess Ballard learned his lesson about linebackers after last year. He’s always a year late on this stuff.

Lance to the Saints with the very next pick.

Added bonus...it will give announcers something to talk about..."Did you know he played BASEBALL and was an outfielder?" Similar to what they do with MAC and basketball

Is Boettcher good in coverage? If not then this is a redundant pick behind Allen.

The starters were supposed to be Carlies and Franklin. Zaire was coming off a pro bowl season. Carlies was the talented young player expected to step up. Linebacker should have been a strength.

Unfortunately, Carlies got hurt and Franklin’s performance dropped off a cliff. It’s unfortunate, but I’m not sure how we can expect Ballard to anticipate things like that.

Depth and special teams early in his career.

You have a point with Franklin (although his play definitely started to decline in '24), but you don't with Carlies. Ballard should know by now to not bank on unproven, injury prone players to seamlessly step in and make major contributions.

Ballard is superior at drafting offensive lineman. Anybody he takes on the offensive line has a decent chance to be a good player.

In 2024, Carlies’s 242 snaps was a decent sample size. Over that span, he got a grade of 83.1 in coverage by PFF, good for 3rd best among Linebackers.

It's too bad PFF grades don't translate into actual wins b/c we'd be unbeatable.

His actual objective stats paint a different picture: 10 games played w/ 6 starts. 36 total tackles, 1 sack, 1 PD, 0 Ints, and 0 FFs his rookie year. So hurt a large part of the season and average at best production. Not saying the guy hadn't shown any promise, but a wiser GM would have had a better backup plan than JAGS/ST guys.

And this isn't the first time something like this has happened under Ballard. Paris Campbell, Matt Pryor, Juju Brents to name a few. Maybe this time around Ballard finally learned something.