Saints beef up offensive line with selection of Kelvin Banks Jr.

Kellen Moore told us his belief before he was ever officially named head coach.

At some point during the Super Bowl, during one of those days when he was sitting at a table with New Orleans media talking about anything and everything except his next job, he got asked an abstract question about how he would theoretically build out a team or something along those lines. And Moore responded by explaining how he thinks the game is won and lost in the trenches.

So, it makes sense that the Saints’ first pick with him as head coach is an offensive tackle. Kelvin Banks will prove over time if he’s the right person for the job and if the value of selecting him with the ninth overall pick pans out. But it’s hard to argue with the theory of the pick, isolating all other factors.

Before we get into who the team didn’t pick, which might be the biggest part of this story and the thing that all decisions in this draft get judged against, let’s first discuss the player who will be joining the roster.

Banks feels like a good fit for this team. He isn’t an elite athlete, but he’s a good athlete with good tape, which might be a welcome change for people who are tired of the team drafting freak athletes with upside on the line. Taliese Fuaga’s athletic profile and production are very similar to what Banks did at Texas last year.

Banks had an outstanding final season at Texas. He only allowed one sack and ten pressures, according to PFF, and he was just a steady presence all along. He also performed well in the running game, making Banks a solid all-around performer.

The tackle is just simply a great mover who can do everything. The key for him will be to make sure he has all of his technique together so that he can reach all of his potential, but this looks like a guy who should get comfortable early on in his tenure. The selection of Banks likely means that Penning will have to try to win a job at guard, and, more than likely, his addition will lead to Taliese Fuaga moving back to right tackle, the position he played in college, after lining up at left tackle as a rookie.

New Orleans has now picked three offensive tackles in the first round since 2022, and this pick is an outward admission that Penning, who became serviceable last year after failing to get on the field as a rookie and getting benched in 2023, is a missed pick. That obviously is a hindrance to the franchise, and that miss means that another pick had to get spent on this position instead of investing somewhere else, but improving on the offensive line is a must, and Penning is in the final year of his contract and the need to replace him was on the horizon.

There are two things here that Banks will need to overcome, though. He’s not a skill position player, which is something many fans wanted, and he’s not a quarterback — specifically, he’s not Shedeur Sanders.

Many people would have liked to see the team take Sanders at this position, and if not Sanders, a different quarterback, even though this class is considered weak. Banks, obviously, is not a quarterback, and he’ll spend his career getting judged against those passers.

If they all stink, then you just step over them and keep going and no one ever brings it up again. But if one of those guys ends up being great, Banks will forever be judged against that player — or until the Saints find their own longterm answer at the position.

Is that fair or logical? The answer doesn’t really matter right now, because that’s just what the climate is. But the Saints are betting on a whole different proposition. They not only felt the tackle was better than the available options at quarterback, they’re telling you that they want to make life easier for that player whenever he does arrive by giving him better blocking.

And that might be the biggest takeaway here, the thing that matters most: The Saints are thinking about the future. They didn’t make a pick that drastically changes their 2025 reality, considering they could have gotten by with Penning. They’re a year early on tackle, honestly. They have bigger needs all over the roster, spots where someone could come in and help them more in 2025. And yet, they looked to the future — at least a little bit.

This team is rebuilding, and this pick might be the clearest sign yet. Kellen Moore told us what mattered most. He then prioritized that exact thing. At least success or failure is going to be determined by following his ideals for how a team is supposed to get built.