WGNO

Saints rookie mini camp underway

Metairie, La. — The Saints welcomed their 2018 draft picks, along with a number of other contract and tryout players to their camp in Metairie. The mini camp started Friday and goes through Sunday.

“Just from them I get the sense that they believe in me and they want to see me grow,” said Marcus Davenport, the Saints 1st round draft pick. “That’s what I’ve been working on. That’s why I’m here.”

“Incredible opportunity to be out here and to be part of the Saints organization,” said Saints 6th round draft pick Boston Scott. “Like I’ve talked about, we grew up as fans and I’m glad that I can come out here and contribute in any way that I can– whether that’s special teams, offense, whatever it takes. I’m just looking to get on the field and produce.”

“Just like when you make that jump from high school to college, the play gets faster,” said Saints 7th round draft pick, Will Clapp. “It gets more physical just like it is here. You can definitely tell the difference and things start to slow down once you get a couple practices in.”

Saints Head Coach Sean Payton spoke to the media about the new players, but was also asked about running back Mark Ingram’s 4 game suspension for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing drugs.

It happens in our league,” Payton said. “We get the same notice when him and his agent are receiving the notice and you deal with it. It goes under PED’s and yet I know Mark well enough to know it wasn’t a performing enhancing drug. He’ll better be able to explain the other parts of it, but it happened with Willie (Snead when he was suspended) last year, so you adjust like it would be an injury.”