2025 provided some very interesting insight into the future of the New Orleans Saints, as over the course of the season, they were able to answer some extremely important questions. Both the head coach and quarterback questions were resolved by the end of the year, which are by far the most necessary to figure out before building the core of a franchise.
One of the biggest reasons this team was able to turn things around down the stretch and find some resemblance of an identity was their 2025 NFL Draft class, which got a ton of playing time late, and in multiple cases, the Saints may have long-term starters from their selections.
While Pro Football Focus grades are not exactly the be-all-end-all of whether or not a player was productive or not, they provide some positive insight into how much players were utilized and what they were able to do with the time they had on the field in small to medium sample sizes. In a recent post from SFdata9ers on X, they provided a graphic combining the snap-weighted PFF rookie grades for the 2025 class, and New Orleans was among the best in that metric.
How well did each rookie class perform in 2025?
— SFdata9ers🏈📊 (@sfdata9ers) January 21, 2026
1. CHI
2. CAR
3. DET
...
30. SF
31. CIN
32. MIA
Measured by snap-weighted rookie PFF grades, Data from @PFFpic.twitter.com/QkRVNYgpTl
Snap-weighted grades level things out a bit so that players who got fewer reps but had a higher grade will have a similar weight to players who had slightly lower grades over a larger sample. Of all the NFL teams, the Saints came in at No. 4 in this group, behind two playoff teams in the Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers, as well as the Detroit Lions, who had a highly competitive rookie class.
It was also an impressive year for the NFC South in this regard, as three of the four teams in the division were top six, with the Atlanta Falcons sitting at No. 6. The only team outside that range is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who were all the way down at No. 20, as their young core started to lose their impact in the latter half of the season.
It has been abundantly clear that New Orleans picked up some huge pieces to their future core in 2025 with Kelvin Banks Jr. and Tyler Shough, as well as some potential intermediate starters with Jonas Sanker and Quincy Riley. This is what they will be looking to replicate with their 2026 selections as well.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: How productive was the New Orleans Saints 2025 NFL draft class?
