The most productive draft class in New Orleans Saints history celebrates its 20-year anniversary this year, and its esteem grows with the seasons.

Running back Reggie Bush (first round, No. 2 overall), safety Roman Harper (second round, No. 43), right guard Jahri Evans (fourth round, No. 108), defensive end Rob Ninkovich (fifth round, No. 135), receiver Mike Hass (sixth round, No.171), cornerback Josh Lay (sixth round, No. 174), right tackle Zach Strief (seventh round, No. 210) and receiver Marques Colston (seventh round, No. 252) — anchored a team adrift and helped New Orleans win Super Bowl XLIV in 2010, make two NFC Championship Game appearances (winning one), win the NFC South Division title three times and total five 10-win seasons, including 13 wins in '09 and '11, tied with two other years ('18 and '19) for the most single-season wins in franchise history.

Bush started 41 of 60 games in five seasons. Harper started 108 of 124 in nine years. Evans totaled 169 starts in as many games in 11 years and is a two-time Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist who is the second-most decorated offensive lineman in franchise history. Strief opened 94 of 158 games in 12 seasons. And Colston started 106 of 146 in 10 years while establishing franchise records for receptions (711), receiving yards (9,759) and receiving touchdowns (72).

"You look back and, one by one we're going to (induct) this draft class," former Saints head coach Sean Payton said at the 2019 Saints Hall of Fame induction honoring both the first and last picks of the '06 draft class (Bush and Colston, respectively). "(Zach) Strief was here last year. He was in that draft class. One by one. All of those guys that were selected became — and you don't realize it at the time — they became so necessary to achieve what we wanted to achieve. They were pillars of what we were going to build."

"That draft — I know ESPN a couple of years ago named that as the No. 1 draft class in the 21^st century," Saints Executive Vice President/General Manager Mickey Loomis said. "A very small percentage of NFL players get to have 10-year careers. And we had six or seven players in that draft that had 10-year careers. That was a special draft."

If not for the sheer production, then for the hope it provided a city in mourning. The 2006 NFL draft took place in April 2006, just eight months after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. That sparkling draft class turned things around for the franchise and the city — giving fans hope for a more prosperous future, even among the wreckage.

"Yes, we were able to put a really good product on the field, but the impact that we had in peoples' lives goes way beyond those handful of Sundays," Colston said. "In hindsight, it gets more and more valuable and more and more important every year, because it's really about the people and the impact on people in the region."

That special feeling has only grown over the years.

The biggest surprise of the 2006 NFL Draft wasn't much of a surprise at all for Payton, who then was in his first season as the Saints' head coach.

The Saints held the second overall pick and, on the eve of the draft, Payton got a call with intel saying that the Texans (first pick) were going to take defensive end Mario Williams instead of the widely projected overall first pick — USC running back Reggie Bush.

At dinner with the front office that evening, Payton kept a poker face. "I'm one to always take advantage of an opportunity," he joked in 2019 at the Saints Hall of Fame induction of Bush and Colston. "We got to the restaurant, and prior to going to the restroom, I just said 'You know, I got this feeling that we're going to have an opportunity to draft Reggie Bush. Anyone want some of that bet?'" When he came back, five $20 bills were sitting on the table.

"He got me on that one," Loomis said. "But the excitement level for us getting Reggie Bush — I don't know that I've seen anything like that...Given the circumstances of (Hurricane) Katrina and where the city was, that was like the first sign of good fortune for the franchise. It was just huge."

"On a 10 Richter scale, the selection of Reggie Bush was a 9.9 for this organization," Payton said. "You remember the crawfish boil across the street and you remember season tickets being sold out within two hours. This was Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson or the Beatles. Seriously, that's how big it was...It was a big deal for our city to have that opportunity to select Reggie Bush."

Bush was the crown jewel of the class. The 2005 Heisman Trophy-winning, two-time national champion and two-time All-American possessed leading-man looks and electrifying moves, a perfect combination for a starved fan base and franchise that was coming off a 3-13 season played in the shadow of Katrina's aftermath. He provided a lightning bolt of enthusiasm even though Deuce McAllister was the returning starter at running back.

"An amazingly, amazingly dynamic player," Payton said. "An amazing teammate, and a guy that was a huge part of what we built here from the very foundation."

"The excitement level for us getting Reggie Bush — I don't know that I've seen anything like that."

- Saints Executive Vice President/General Manager Mickey Loomis

"Everybody had so (many) hopes and dreams when Reggie was drafted, and I don't blame them," Harper said. "He was electrifying."

As a rookie, Bush ran for 565 yards and six touchdowns on 155 carries, caught 88 passes for 742 yards and two touchdowns, and returned 28 punts for 216 yards and a touchdown. In five seasons with the Saints, Bush ran for 2,090 yards and 17 touchdowns on 524 carries, caught 294 passes for 2,142 yards and 12 touchdowns and returned 92 punts for 720 yards and four touchdowns.

"Jahri, Roman Harper — they were immediate starters," Loomis said. "(Harper) came from Alabama, he had a little bit of that swagger and confidence that you get from being an Alabama player. He expected to win and Reggie expected to win, and they brought that swagger to a franchise that was kind of hoping to win at that time."

Bush encountered vast expectations from a fan base that sought a face of the franchise after Katrina.

"My first memory of coming to New Orleans was the people welcoming me with open arms," Bush said at his Saints Hall of Fame induction in 2019. "The first time I landed, I was taken on a tour throughout New Orleans, through the Ninth Ward to see a lot of the devastation. Right away I felt this sense of responsibility to give it 110 percent every day, every time I stepped on the field."

"The task, the job that we put on our shoulders, along with the city, to make sure that we brought a Super Bowl to New Orleans...we were able to do that through the spirit of this town and this city and Louisiana," he said. "I love these fans, these are the best fans in football."

Bush retired in 2017 and began a career as a college football analyst, but the city would leave a lasting impact. "New Orleans is a home away from home for me. I'll always have a spot in my heart for the city of New Orleans," he said. And for his teammates. "We used to always say we're gonna walk together forever because of what we were able to accomplish. Some of these guys are still some of my best friends."

Harper was sure he wouldn't be drafted in the first round in 2006, and he'd been dedicated to working out for months prior to the draft, so the Alabama safety decided it was time to unwind.

No particular team, including the Saints, was on his mind.

"I hadn't partied or hung out for two or three months," he said. "I didn't want to mess up or have anything be negative, I wanted to put everything I had into the process. So, the night before (the draft) was the first night I went out since I left college. I was in Tuscaloosa. And, man. They say don't kick it out of the ballpark — I kicked it over three ballparks. It was great."

On Saturday morning, Harper woke up as the first round was starting — having already slept through the pre-draft shows. "So there were no butterflies or worries about any of that stuff," he said.

He showered and drove about an hour and 20 minutes to his parents' house in Prattville, Ala. — arriving just as the second round had started. "I was probably home for 30 minutes or so, and then I think my dad said he answered the phone, somebody asked for me. I got on the phone and I kind of walked out of the living room, and it was Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis and they said that they were going to draft me.

"I just played it cool and got off the phone with them and just kind of sat there. My parents asked me who was it, and I told them, 'Nobody,' because I was afraid that — you hear the horror stories where they tell you they're going to draft you and then they don't, so I just sat there quietly. And then about two or three minutes later, my name scrolled across the bottom of the TV. Then, it felt like my whole town showed up at my house. It was great."

Harper, the No. 43 overall pick in 2006 and the second member of the most productive draft in Saints history, joined a team and city he knew little about.

"I knew about Juvenile, No Limit, all that stuff because that was the music down there and being from Alabama, I knew all that growing up," he said. "But I'd only been to New Orleans, I think, one other time. I didn't know anything about it. I knew (the Saints) stunk because my college roommate called me and congratulated me and then told me, 'The worst part is that you guys will never be going to the playoffs because they suck.' And I was like, 'Bro, you're probably right. But I still got drafted.' I literally said that. I was just happy."

The happiness was fleeting. Training camp, at Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., was a test of will that left an unforgettable impression on everyone involved. "It was awful. It was hot, it was a lot," Harper said. "We had to get there way early, too, because we had a new head coach. It sucked. It wasn't fun at all."

"We saw people drop in training camp," Evans said. "We saw people retire (and) say, hey, I don't want to play football no more. It was like, 'We kind of went through some stuff here.'"

Harper found a way to stay focused. "I think what I look back on the most and remember...I called my father and told him how bad it was. And then he told me just to look back at that check that they gave me, and that this is what I wanted and this was part of it. I did that and I got back to work."

"It was tough. It sucked. And then you hear about other guys around the league that had days off or something like that as a rookie. It can really mess with your psyche, but I think that's exactly what Sean Payton was trying to create, was make everybody in that organization uncomfortable. And he did it really fast."

"It was still great to see what it felt like to be winning in a city like New Orleans...It just felt different. People were different."

- Roman Harper

Harper started all five games he played as a rookie but tore his ACL and missed the final 11.

"I learned how to play the game within the game from all the veteran defensive backs that were out there with me," he said. "And then to see the team continue on that trajectory while I'm on the sidelines and doing rehab full time. I didn't see it happening; I don't think any of us said or thought that it would happen. It was just really, really cool to be a part of those 'first' type of conversations.

"I still had to go do all my rookie duties – make sure the chicken was there on time, making sure players who needed this, that or the other got it. But it was still great to see what it felt like to be winning in a city like New Orleans. It was really different than winning at Alabama in Tuscaloosa, trust me. It just felt different, people were different. It was really cool stuff."

That Saints team was the first in franchise history to advance to the NFC Championship Game. It was also the first NFL team to be intimately connected to a city decimated by a hurricane.

"When I first got there, street signs were down," Harper said. "The thing I remember the most is that Walmart closed at, like, 8 o'clock. And I was like, Walmart's not even 24 hours?"

A teammate from New Orleans stepped in as a tour guide for Harper, who had more spare time than most due to the injury.

"He took me and a couple of guys all around throughout the city, around the lower Ninth Ward and all these other places that had been really ravaged," said Harper, who was a Saint from 2006-13, and again in 2016. "We only knew what we saw from the interstate. So, to actually go inside the city and see some stuff, and you learn what the signs on the doors mean. It was something that I've never seen before, nor will I forget it."

Today, Harper is a college football analyst for SEC Network and ESPN, in addition to co-hosting a podcast for the NFL interviewing football legends on what their "second acts" look like — including former teammates Jonathan Vilma, Jimmy Graham and fellow '06 classmates Jahri Evans and Marques Colston. For his part, while his second act has been remarkable, his first remains legendary.

The peripheral things didn't matter much when the phone rang.

Not the fact that he played Division II football at Bloomsburg (Pa.) University. Or that the first day of the NFL Draft lasted roughly six hours and he'd need to wait until the second day — Sunday, April 30, 2006 — before his name was called. Or that the team dialing his number finished 3-13 in its nomadic 2005 season, had a first-year head coach and was returning to a city that looked like a more suitable home for Mad Max than a football team.

"It was an opportunity to play ball in the NFL," Evans said. "So at that moment, I wasn't really dialed into the record that they had. Everybody knew what was going on with (Hurricane Katrina) and things of that nature that were happening down there at that time. We were more so aware of it when we got down there and were able to actually see it.

"For me, it was about the business of football and being the best player I could be, going out there and trying to win as many games and become a dominant player."

Evans, the Saints' fourth-round draft pick (No. 108 overall), did just that. In 11 seasons with New Orleans (2006-16), the right guard became the second-most decorated offensive lineman in franchise history: A five-time All-Pro, six-time Pro Bowler who was named to the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team, is a Saints Hall of Famer and an inductee into the Saints Ring of Honor, who is a two-time finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He and the Class of '06 helped anchor the most successful run in franchise history.

"For me, it was pretty legendary," said Evans, who spent four seasons on New Orleans' coaching staff (2022-25) and currently is the assistant offensive line coach with Pittsburgh. "Coming out of Bloomsburg, Division II guy, I just remember all my all-star games I went through, being one of six or seven guys from Division II at the Combine, and all the experiences that I had leading up to the draft. Being around some Division I athletes and the coaches and the pro days just leading up to it, wondering where I was going to go, who was going to take me."

The fact that it was the Saints wasn't a deterrent. He dutifully drove almost 16 hours from Philadelphia to New Orleans and arrived in what felt like a ghost town. "There really weren't a lot of people there at all," Evans said. "I wasn't really out and about too much because I was there to make the team and focus on football. (But) we did drive downtown and went to Bourbon Street and Canal Street — the tourist areas. And I just remember there not being a lot of people there. Businesses closed and there just weren't a lot of people there. But the (Saints veterans) were like, 'It's not like this all the time.' They were telling us about how it used to be."

"In our room, everybody was hungry. Everybody was competing. And at the same time everybody was uplifting each other."

- Jahri Evans

In order to transform the team, Evans and the post-Katrina Saints endured an infamous training camp that was a nightmarish test of stamina and endurance, conducted at Millsaps College, a Division IIII school in Jackson, Miss. "The heat. That's what stood out," Evans said, laughing. "I always tell people, I went Division II and then I went Division III in training camp, because we had to go to Millsaps. The heat, the temperature down there is different."

"But I was used to the hard work and I knew all the hard work I put in to get there. And coming from Division II, I was used to the grind" Evans said. "But it was a grinder. Guys were hitting and we embraced the hit, we embraced the contact. Everybody was hungry in our (offensive line) group. We had one returning starter and that was (left tackle), Jammal Brown, the first-round pick from the year before. In our room, everybody was hungry, everybody was competing. And at the same time everybody was uplifting each other."

Evans didn't enter training camp as a starter but when the test-of-wills was complete, he was atop the depth chart at right guard.

"I didn't walk in there saying, 'Hey, I'm here to take the starting job,' because at that time we had (10-year veteran and nine-year NFL starter) Jermane Mayberry," he said. "They put him there to play the position but then once he went down, that was my mentality. He gave me words of encouragement and he was like, this is your spot, go get it."

Mayberry suffered a right shoulder injury and was placed on injured reserve before ultimately retiring. "After that moment when he went down, I said it's mine, I want it, it's an opportunity," Evans said. "Montrae Holland, they moved him to left — the previous year, he played right — so he played left and competed for that. But he helped me a lot, too, and so did Jamar Nesbit. All those guys, grinding and helping each other and seeing who the guy was that was going to go out there and start.

"I think that's one of the reasons why we had a lot of success that year, too. We all were grinding together. We all were grinding for the spot but it wasn't like there was any malicious intent behind somebody else getting the position or somebody else getting the opportunity. We just wanted to go out there and win games. But once I saw the opportunity and once I displayed my skillset and guys saw what I could do, it was just continue to get better, continue to learn, go out there and just do the best I can every day."

That mentality helped Evans become a dominant force who started 169 regular-season games and 10 playoff games — including the victorious Super Bowl XLIV — for New Orleans. "He was one of the most important elements on an offense that had historically — over that time frame — it was unlike anything seen in the NFL in the history of the league," Loomis said.

Evans fondly remembers the level of performance his class brought to the table. "One thing I do remember is the athletes that we had," he said. "I thought it was a really good class, and the thing about it is, everyone was starting new. So I felt like everybody really had an opportunity to showcase their skill set to go out there and win a position."

A little training camp trauma bonding helped, as well. "I think (entering the regular season) we all just went, 'Hey, it can't be worse than training camp.' We were out there banging against each other. That kind of set the standard. It helped our mind-set as a young, rookie group, just knowing that what we went through in training camp was tough."

And while the '06 draft class showed remarkable athleticism as a whole, the players were fortunate to have an upperclass to help guide the way, and an entire city rooting for them. "We had some great vets like (running back) Deuce (McAllister) and (receiver) Joe Horn. And there were a lot of external things outside the building — you want to win for the city. You want to put your best foot forward (and) the fan base, the legion of fans gave us energy.

"I think (uplifting the community) was on everybody's mind a lot. More than people think."

Of all the members of the Saints' illustrious 2006 draft class, the player who lasted longest with the franchise didn't even think the Saints wanted him and, later, questioned whether he wanted the Saints.

Offensive tackle Zach Strief was one of New Orleans' two seventh-round picks (No. 210 overall) and started 94 of his 158 games in 12 seasons, one year more than Evans' 11 years and two more than Colston's 10. But he didn't think he'd have any years with New Orleans.

"I remember being really excited — my mom and dad took vacation to New Orleans every year for over a decade," Strief said. "It's their favorite city in the world, so they were very excited. I had a very interesting Combine meeting with (offensive line coach) Doug Marrone at the time, and after the initial excitement and celebration ended, my dad leaned over and goes, 'Isn't that the O-line coach you said hated you?'"

What gave Strief that impression? In an informal meeting with the Saints, Strief said then-strength coach Dan Dalrymple led him to a table and sat him next to Marrone.

"He introduced himself and he said, 'I watched your tape. You're terrible,'" Strief said. "And then basically proceeded to be mad at me for not knowing how to run 'Power' out of '22' personnel. I came from a no-huddle, spread offense. We just didn't do a lot in college (at Northwestern). It was a very simple offense and he's asking me things that I had never done or seen before. He's like, 'Man, we don't have time to teach you all this stuff.'"

But what Strief didn't know was that Marrone was testing him. "Really, it's about seeing how you respond to that type of pressure. I understand now the reasoning, but didn't at the time. You get up and walk away and you're like, 'Man, that didn't go so good.'"

It may have gone better than his first trip to New Orleans after the draft. Strief drove down from Cincinnati but had a concentration lapse while looking for a hotel in Birmingham, Ala. "I had just passed the highway i was supposed to get on. The next day, I get back in the car and start driving and I'm realizing I should have already hit this exit by now. I called my dad and we're looking at maps and realized I had missed my turn, and he's like: Here's another way we can get you there."

The alternate route took him into the city through the east and straight through the devastation left in Hurricane Katrina's wake. "I drove through the worst of it. It was completely destroyed, there were exits closed. I remember, vividly, there was a pickup truck on the roof of a strip shopping center in New Orleans East that you could see from the highway. And it was just like driving into a nightmare, driving into a scary movie.

"I was getting low on gas, I'm freaking out, I'm calling my dad. I don't even know if there's a place to stay — you can't get off the interstate. I drove across a floating bridge — just a very interesting introduction to the city. I remember getting to the Airport Hilton (in Kenner) and the gas station next door has a giant piece of plywood out and it had '2 to 6' on it. And I asked them what that meant and they said that one's open from 2 to 6. And I said what if you need gas and it's noon, and they're like, drive farther down and you'll see another piece of plywood that says '10 to 2' on it."

He survived the harrowing trip, but training camp at Millsaps nearly broke Strief.

"That first training camp is by far the hardest thing physically I've ever done," he said. "At one point, I actually had decided I was going to quit. I was going to retire. I was getting killed, first of all; I was not playing well. We had injuries on the offensive line; there was only eight of us for the first two weeks of that camp. It was kind of like, 'You guys just stay in there, have fun.'"

Although fun wasn't exactly what Strief would have called it. "I was just so beat up and I wasn't playing well and just thought to myself, if this is what the NFL is like, I don't know that I really want to do this for a living. This does not feel fun at all. So I called my dad and said, I don't think this is for me. And mostly, I think the reality was I didn't feel like I was playing well enough to ever make that team at that time."

But a chance conversation with tight ends coach Terry Malone tipped the scale for Strief.

"I was walking down for my second practice (of the day) — I was going to finish the day and then go talk to Sean. That was made up in my mind," he said. "And Terry Malone comes walking out of where the coaches offices are and he's in an upbeat mood and he says, 'Man, you're doing a great job out there. Keep battling. We all see you. You're in a tough position, you're working your tail off. Just keep it up.'

"It was the positive reinforcement that I needed where I felt like maybe, just maybe, it would be all right. Because they were recognizing that I was working hard at it. It was nothing about production, it wasn't like he was saying hey, you're playing great. It was just, we see what we're putting you through and you're doing a great job. It completely changed the way that I was thinking about the situation.

"I always made a note as a player and as a coach to be positive with young guys during training camp, you never know where someone is at and what position they're in mentally. I always told Terry that all that career and time that I got there could have all been missed if not for him just being kind enough to say something positive to somebody."

Strief survived, the Saints went 10-6 and reached the NFC Championship Game, and the draft class of '06 remains revered for the foundation it helped establish and the production it provided.

"The feeling that you have playing there is really unique, and I think being a part of that first class and going through that first season back in New Orleans really bonded everybody."

- Zach Strief

"That season went maybe better than anticipated after the year before and the amount of turnover and everything," Strief said. "Really kind of set the groundwork in '06 to eventually end up in a Super Bowl and for the success that we had after that. But I think all of it really stemmed from giving that team something to feed off of, because I don't think we were very good in '06. I just think we were pretty tough. They kind of beat it out of us in training camp, but I think all of us realized pretty quickly this is kind of bigger than football. It gave you a reason and that's a big deal in an NFL season that has a lot of ups and downs.

"All of us were new and all of us walked into that and I think there was a real — and there always was, and I think there still is today — a real genuine connection between the players that are there and the city. The feeling that you have playing there is really unique and I think being a part of that first class and going through that first season back in New Orleans really bonded everybody. Looking back now, there's a ton of pride in being part of that group and being talked about as somebody who had a positive effect on an organization."

Strief played his entire 12-year career in New Orleans before retiring in 2018, becoming the team's radio play-by-play announcer for three seasons, and then spending two seasons as Saints assistant offensive line coach under Payton — a full circle moment that wouldn't have seemed possible on those grueling days in Jackson.

Strief is currently the assistant head coach/run game coordinator for the Denver Broncos, also under Payton, who deliberately targeted him for the job. "Wherever I went, if I was able to, (I was going to) hire him as the line coach," Payton said at the NFL Owners meeting in 2023. "There's certain people you get to come across in your lifetime that you just know are achievers. You know whatever it is they don't know, they'll figure out quickly and be successful. He's one of those people."

Marques Colston read the room and rationalized that the 2006 NFL Draft would conclude without his name being called.

"That's the thing I remember the most, is just sitting and waiting and waiting," he said. "Coming from a school like Hofstra, I felt like I'd put together a good career but at that time, there was just not a lot of intel on where I could go — anywhere from second round to free agent. So, I was truly just kind of waiting."

Somewhere amid the seventh round, Colston started fielding calls from teams with no picks left. "I had just gotten comfortable with the fact that I was going to be a free agent. I started to look through some of the calls I got and started trying to figure out where the best fit was going to be."

Four slots from the last selection — a compensatory seventh-round pick, No. 252 in a 255-player draft — his phone rang with a 504 area code calling.

"I didn't have very many people in my phone from New Orleans, so I saw the '504' area code and kind of knew what was happening," Colston said.

The Saints were taking a chance — a late chance — on a player who would go on to become the most productive receiver in franchise history over a 10-year career. Colston, now an entrepreneur and venture capitalist focused on growth-stage sports businesses, is the franchise all-time leader in receptions (711), receiving yards (9,759) and receiving touchdowns (72). A certified Saints legend, he will be announcing a day two pick for the team at the NFL draft this week.

But initially, he wasn't overjoyed to have been selected by the Saints.

"I'm a fan of the game first, and I knew the hardships that they went through as an organization a year before," he said of 2005, when the Saints were driven from New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and posted a 3-13 record while playing home games in San Antonio and Baton Rouge. "Honestly and candidly speaking as somebody that didn't have a great chance of making a roster, it wasn't at the top of my list of places that I wanted to go. But it just goes to show you, sometimes the plan you have for yourself...there's a higher plan sometimes for you."

The initial trepidation gave way to the excitement of being drafted, which later yielded as he absorbed the totality of the situation. New Orleans had been gut-punched by Katrina; homes and businesses leveled, lives disrupted and devastated, a flickering flame of a city that needed oxygen.

"I'd never been to the city, never had any experiences pre-Katrina with the city," Colston said. "So my introduction was through the TV, and watching everything that transpired with Katrina and the challenges that the people in the city were facing. That was all I knew about the city at that point, when I stepped off the plane.

"Once the excitement (of being drafted) wore off, there was this moment of gravity of, like — I think it was still up in the air whether or not the team was going to be in New Orleans. There were some rumors that the team was going to move, so once the excitement kind of settled, it was just trying to make sense of what was happening. What was going to happen and in the midst of all of that, trying to figure out how to be a seventh-rounder and give yourself enough of an opportunity to make a roster."

And at first, that didn't go so well, either.

"My memory of Marques Colston was that first rookie minicamp," Loomis said. "He was kind of awful — his back was hurting, he was out of shape and we were thinking, 'Oh my gosh, what did we do?'"

Colston didn't disagree.

"I think the heat and humidity (were) definitely a shock to the system," he said — having only experienced the milder weather of his hometown of Harrisburg, Pa., and Long Island (where Hofstra is located).

"The fact that the process of training and getting ready for the (NFL) Combine is drastically different than actually going out and playing the game... and just trying to bridge the gap there and conditioning – it was a rough go that first weekend. I thought I had kind of blew my opportunity before I even truly got an opportunity to show what I could do. Another one of those things that, there were plans that were bigger than me, and luckily…I didn't blow it before it even transpired."

Even though he was a draft pick, Colston didn't believe he had any assurances of being welcomed back to the facility after the rough rookie minicamp.

"You don't know what you don't know," he said. "What you do know going into that process is first-, second-, third-round picks are relatively safe. The scouting department doesn't want to look wrong on those picks. But beyond that, it's a crapshoot."

Even more so for an organization with a new coaching staff. "At the time, Sean (Payton) was trying to establish who he was as a coach and what he wanted to build. It all makes sense now in hindsight, but as a 22-year-old just trying to put your best foot forward, I had no idea. I just knew I wasn't performing at the level I wanted to."

When he eventually steadied his play, he became a starter by the end of training camp.

"That was one of the funniest things," Colston said. "I'm just a naïve person. It's my nature — I don't want to overshoot the expectation. So, I literally went into that fourth preseason game and they told me I was only going to play the first series. Being naïve and not knowing what that actually meant, it made me more nervous. Like, 'I'm not going to have another opportunity to show what I can do. I hope I did enough.' In hindsight, they rest the starters in the fourth preseason game, so you're actually in a good spot."

"We were able to play a significant role in not just a turnaround on the field, but a turnaround on the field that led to a turnaround in the region. I think that's the part I take the most pride in."

- Marques Colston

For the majority of his 10-year career (spent entirely in New Orleans), the Saints were, too.

New Orleans won Super Bowl XLIV and three NFC South Division titles, appeared in the NFC Championship Game twice (winning one) and posted five seasons with 10-plus victories.

The Class of '06 is one for the ages, as was the long-shot receiver who helped lead the charge. "His nickname was Quiet Storm for a reason," Bush said in 2019 at their joint Saints Hall of Fame induction. "He didn't talk a whole lot but he led by example, and that's what you want. Somebody who's gonna punch the clock every time he steps on the football field. You knew exactly what you were gonna get out of Colston. He was Mr. Consistency. Again, he didn't say a whole lot, but he didn't have to. He said a lot with his demeanor on the football field and with the way he played the game."

"It's definitely one of those things where I think as more time goes on, you realize how rare it was," Colston said. "There are other draft classes that produced at a really high level, but I think what makes our group special is there's a timing element and a factor just around what was happening in the region that was way bigger than football. The fact that we were able to play a significant role in not just a turnaround on the field, but a turnaround on the field that led to a turnaround in the region, I think that's the part I take the most pride in."