Larry Warford’s agility and technique fits the Saints offense perfectly

We continue on with some New Orleans Saints analysis from Football Outsiders, who answered five questions for all our SB Nation sites. One of the players I feel that doesn’t get enough attention is right guard Larry Warford, so what can he bring to the table for Sean Payton’s offense?

Larry Warford is an underrated addition the Saints brought in to their offensive line that many tend to overlook. What were his biggest strengths for the Lions in 2016, and where could he use the most work?

I asked Scott Kacsmar, who covered the Lions for the book, what he saw from Warford, and his opinion is that Warford was good at both run and pass blocking but not great at either. That jives with what I’ve seen and read of him. Most people agree that his best year was his rookie year, and he hasn’t quite lived up to that since. What I see is an agile, technically sound guard who is excellent on screens and in space, who doesn’t make many mistakes, and who has become much more consistent over the past year or so. The closest thing to a knock is that he isn’t the type of player who’ll dominate his opponent completely out of the play, but I wouldn’t consider that much of a negative. Given his age and familiarity with the system, he should have the right guard spot locked down for at least the length of his contract and hopefully longer.

Warford, who was rated as Pro Football Focus’ No. 19 guard (77 total), has the feel of a younger Jahri Evans. Pairing him alongside Zach Strief presumably gives the Saints one less worry on their offensive line, and you should expect some big success in the ground game from Mark Ingram and Adrian Peterson running behind these two.