When the New Orleans Saints chose to stay put at No. 24 and select Michigan Wolverines center Cesar Ruiz in the first round of this year’s NFL draft, they didn’t do so with a vision in mind of him sitting on the bench. He’s here to compete for a starting job.
Saints coach Sean Payton made that clear in a conference call with local media after the first round concluded, saying of his team’s top picks in the last two draft classes: “We have some flexibility and I think the obvious question would be, ‘hey, he’s a center, you had a center last year.