Here’s that shakeup to the New Orleans Saints receiving corps we’ve been waiting for. The team hoped to land an impactful rookie in the 2025 NFL draft like Tetairoa McMillan (taken one spot ahead of them in Round 1) or Isaac TeSlaa (who the Detroit Lions traded ahead of them to pick), but they struck out. So Saints GM Mickey Loomis waited until the week before roster cuts to cut a deal with the Denver Broncos, acquiring 6-foot-5 contested-catch specialist Devaugn Vele.
So how does Vele fit into the Saints wide receiver rotation? Here’s how the group seems to stack up, assuming Vele is a lock to make the roster, based off what we’ve seen in preseason games and at training camp practices:
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Chris Olave
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Rashid Shaheed
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Brandin Cooks
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Devaughn Vele
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Cedrick Wilson Jr.
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Mason Tipton
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Dante Pettis
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Kevin Austin Jr.
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Donovan Peoples-Jones
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Moochie Dixon (rookie)
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Roderick Daniels (rookie)
Vele is the tallest guy in the room (nobody else measures in over 6-foot-2), and the heaviest. Peoples-Jones, at 204 pounds, is the only other wideout to weigh in at over 200. And he can play. Pro Football Reference has a great “success rate” stat, which you can read about here, but the gist of it is that it measures how close a player comes to converting a first down every time they touch the ball. Last season, 89 difference wide receivers were targeted 50 or more times. Vele, with 55 targets, had the fourth-best receiving success rate in that group (63.6), trailing only Tee Higgins (64.2), Amon-Ra St. Brown (70.2), and Chris Godwin (72.6). That’s impressive.
We’re expecting the Saints to keep at least four receivers on the 53-man roster next week, but they could go higher. Kellen Moore’s previous teams always rostered at least five (including last year on the Philadelphia Eagles), and they ran as high as seven deep on the Dallas Cowboys in 2022. It’s a safe bet that two or three guys will return on the practice squad after waiver claims are processed. But at this point it’s hard to see Wilson, Tipton, and Pettis each making the roster. If they were expected to, the Saints probably wouldn’t have traded for Vele in the first place.
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