Why Saints traded up for Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry

Marshon Lattimore’s status with the Saints remains something of a mystery, and coach Dennis Allen didn’t exactly clear it up on Friday night a few hours after New Orleans traded up to draft cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry in Round 2 of the NFL Draft.

“Look, Marshon’s part of our team, he’s been a valuable part of our team, and we’re looking forward to him being a part of our team,” Allen said – while also acknowledging that, “I haven’t talked to him in a while.”

As he typically does every offseason, Lattimore has been training on his own away from the Saints at the start of the workout program. He usually doesn’t come to New Orleans until the mandatory minicamp.

“Marshon’s one that we haven’t had a lot of contact with anyway. So I wouldn’t say that this is anything abnormal. He’s I’m sure back in Cleveland getting himself ready to go. He’ll come back in shape. And then he’ll be ready to go when we’re ready to start up,” said Allen, adding that Lattimore had a conversation with Saints director of sports science Matt Rhea about “sending him some workout stuff.”

“And that’s never been something that you really worry too much about him,” Allen said. “He’s usually come back in pretty good shape. Look, quite honestly last year in training camp I thought he had one of his better training camps.”

So to sum up, Lattimore’s status probably didn’t change with the selection of McKinstry on Friday night – but it remains undefined.

In recent months we’ve gotten the impression that New Orleans will welcome Lattimore back and would have to get a significant trade offer to consider moving him (with the price potentially dropping after June 1 when the salary-cap ramifications wouldn’t hit as hard). But they didn’t make the McKinstry pick specifically because they know something more concrete than that.

And Allen sure made it sound like they would have taken McKinstry regardless – rattling off one of his most repeated phrases that “you can never have enough good corners in this league.” Especially with the uncertain long-term futures of both Lattimore and Paulson Adebo, who is heading into the final year of his contract.

“With the amount of man-to-man snaps that we play, it’s a valuable position. And look, we’ve had to have our third or fourth corner play a ton of snaps for us the last couple years. And I think the corner position’s been one of the things that’s been one of our better positions. It’s allowed us to play defense the way that we like to play,” Allen said. “So look, I went into this draft thinking I’d love to get a corner to add some depth. We lost Ike (veteran Isaac Yiadom) through free agency, so I felt like it was a place that we wanted to try and see if we could find somebody. Again, we weren’t gonna force anything.

“(But) we thought it was really good value for us. We thought there was a chance he could go in the first round.”

New Saints CB Kool-Aid McKinstry talks his approach to playing cornerbackFULL INTERVIEW⬇️https://t.co/cYYFT4UqdP pic.twitter.com/RFIareNnus— NOF (@nofnetwork) April 27, 2024

McKinstry (5-foot-11, 196 pounds) played almost exclusively outside cornerback at Alabama as a three-year starter – where he mostly played press-man coverage against some of the best receivers in college football.

But Allen echoed what Nick suggested in his NewOrleans.Football analysis after watching McKinstry’s tape – that he looks like a player who could thrive in the slot as well.

“I feel really good about getting Kool-Aid. I think he’s a really good player. Highly intelligent, highly instinctual in terms of the player. Has shown the ability to play press coverage. Can play outside. We feel like he can go inside and play nickel, so there’s some versatility that he can play with,” said Allen – who was asked what makes him feel that way.

“When you watch him play and you talk to the staff there, you see a highly intelligent and a highly instinctive football player. You see a guy that has the ability to fit in the run game and play physically. And so when you have somebody that’s got the skill set, the coverage skills he’s got on the outside, and then you combine that with the instincts and the intelligence and you see the willingness in the run game, the physicality, that makes me think that he can play inside,” Allen said.

That could lead to an interesting battle with current slot corner Alontae Taylor – a second-round pick himself in 2022 who was converted from the outside to the inside with mixed results so far. But that’s a quandary the Saints will happily work through if it means they have all of their top four corners available at the same time.

Allen said McKinstry will train at both spots this summer, but he will be viewed as an outside corner who moves into the slot. And he also said we probably won’t see McKinstry on the practice field until June at the earliest as he recovers from a Jones fracture in his foot that was revealed during combine medical exams.

But Allen insisted it’s “nothing that’s gonna be a concern going into training camp.”

Nick Saban on the newest member of the New Orleans Saints, Kool-Aid McKinstry. pic.twitter.com/mCJdz6atjd— Jack Knowlton (@JackKnowlton_) April 27, 2024

When I dug into the scouting reports on McKinstry, I noticed a common refrain from scouting analysts that suggested he plays more “controlled” than “attacking and aggressive.” More cerebral and less gambling.

Allen explained that’s mostly because he plays so much press-man coverage and often has his back to the ball instead of being a player in position to try and jump routes etc. But Allen said that’s another aspect he likes about McKinstry – that “there’s not a lot of panic in his game down the field, and he can play the ball with his back to the ball and the ball above his head.”

McKinstry had just two career interceptions in 33 career starts, but still earned first-team All-American honors by the Associated Press last season. And according to the Athletic’s Dane Brugler, both LSU receivers Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. told scouts he was the best cornerback they faced in college.

🆕: Saints Draft: Reviewing Taliese Fuaga pick, previewing Day 2📌: Breaking down the Taliese Fuaga pick📌: What will Saints do at pick 45?🔗: https://t.co/nXe6uQZzjb pic.twitter.com/iocAzk4Ew9— NOF (@nofnetwork) April 26, 2024

McKinstry gave a terrific answer when I asked him about those controlled-vs.-attacking scouting reports.

“I feel like at cornerback, it’s a position that everyone can see a mess-up. So I play the game the right way, I play the position the right way. I don’t really gamble unless I know I can make the play. And I feel like that’s the way the game’s supposed to be played,” McKinstry said. “Sometimes you can gamble and look good, sometimes you can gamble and it’s going the other way. Like I was saying, cornerback’s one of those positions that even someone who has never seen a football game or a grandmother that’s never seen football, she knows when a cornerback messed up. She know when a receiver gets to a cornerback.

“So just being honest with you, that’s why I play the game the right way, that’s why I play cornerback the right way. Because I don’t want to be that guy.”

And as for that indelible nickname, McKinstry said it was his grandmother who gave it to him on the day he was born.

“She said I came out smiling and she said I had a ‘Kool-Aid smile,’” explained McKinstry, who said he has embraced the name ever since.