Saints offseason overview: Tight ends

METAIRIE – Jared Cook had the biggest impact among the free agents the New Orleans Saints signed last offseason.

He was the third-leading receiver on the team, catching 43 passes for 705 yards (16.4 yards per catch) and nine touchdowns (tying Michael Thomas for the team lead).

So the Saints starting tight end position is in very good hands, though the position could still be addressed in free agency or the draft to upgrade the depth. Behind Cook on the tight-end depth chart are Josh Hill, Garrett Griffin and Jason Vander Laan.

When the Saints signed Cook, who was coming off a career season with the Raiders, coach Sean Payton and quarterback Drew Brees routinely talked about the 6-foot-5 pass catcher being “a big target” with a “big catch radius.”

He proved to be that and gradually earned Brees’ trust, and that of Teddy Bridgewater during Bridgewater’s five-game starting stint after Brees was injured in the second game of the season – even though Cook himself was slowed by injury.

“Any one-on-one match-up, there’s not a guy on defense that’s going to match his size,” Brees said. “You always feel like there is a place where you throw the football where he can get it and other guys can’t.”

Cook’s arrival gave Brees and Bridgewater a dangerous threat to turn to as a complement to All-Pro Thomas and running back Alvin Kamara, who has caught 81 passes in each of his three seasons.

After a slow start that saw Cook not catch a touchdown pass in the first four games he found the end zone in each of the next two games before missing two games because of an ankle injury.

When he returned he made 17 catches and found the end zone twice in the next four games. He appeared headed to his most productive game when he caught two early touchdowns against San Francisco before being sidelined by a concussion sustained on the second touchdown.

Cook caught three touchdowns in the final two games of the regular season and had five catches, one less than his season high, for 54 yards tough he didn’t score a touchdown in the 26-20 wild-card playoff loss to Minnesota.

“We went a stretch where Jared wasn’t healthy,” Payton said, “but shoot (we saw) all the things we saw at training camp.”

Cook filled the role he was signed to fill, one previously held by Benjamin Watson in 2018 and by others such as Jimmy Graham.

But Payton utilizes his tight ends in a variety of ways and Hill is an important player whose value isn’t fully told by his statistics. He had 25 catches for 226 yards (9.0 yards per catch) and three touchdowns last season. Payton likes Hill’s blocking and his ability to line up in a variety of positions in a variety of packages.

Griffin is a practice-squad alumnus that the Saints like who spent last season on injured reserve and Vander Laan, a former college quarterback, played in two games as a fullback and one on special teams before going on injured reserve last season.