The New Orleans Saints have been one of the NFL's most prolific teams when it comes to draft day trades, but they only ever seem to go one direction.
In 2007 the team traded their second round pick to the Lions for 3rd and 5th round selections. Since that point New Orleans has executed 25 trades, all of which have moved them up the board.
"Every year I say that we’re willing to do either way and then I’m like [25-0] going up," Loomis said in his annual pre-draft press conference. "So it’s kind of hard for me to keep saying that I’m willing to trade back and then I haven’t done it for quite some time.”
SAINTS PICKS IN 2024 DRAFT
- 1.14
- 2.45 (from Broncos)
- 5.150
- 5.168 (comp)
- 5.170 (comp)
- 5.175 (comp)
- 6.190
- 6.199 (from Eagles)
- 7.239 (from Rams via Broncos)
But with the Saints appearing to shift their strategy in free agency to a more forward-thinking approach, could this be the year the draft trade strategy changes, too? In many instances, Loomis said, the issue is that trade-back options have been too steep a drop. There will be a host of calls made over the next several days to establish pick values and trade options, in most cases up 10 or down 10 from wherever the Saints' pick lands. The team currently holds the No. 14 and 45 selections, but then doesn't pick again until No. 150.
"If you move back 2 or 3 or 4 spots, probably the level of player is similar," Loomis continued. "If you’re moving back 8-10, I think oftentimes you’re dropping down a class, you know, if you believe in your board, you believe in the evaluations that your staff have done, then it’s just hard for me to grasp getting a lesser player talent-wise, and so I really believe in the evaluation process that we do and that’s what makes it more difficult.”
If the Saints don't move up, the next question would be: Is the 26th consecutive trade up more likely? The Saints GM hinted that could be the case, and the state of their draft board supplies plenty of ammunition. The Saints enter the draft with just two top 100 selections, but they hold seven Day 3 picks, including four picks in the 5th round -- three of which were granted as compensatory selections.
With that long way between 45 and 150, that would leave plenty of time to assess a move. Loomis said those are discussions that won't often happen prior to the draft, but often will develop as the board does. In 2023 the Saints held serve on the first two days, but quickly pounced on Day 3 and moved up to the first pick of the 4th round to pick OL Nick Saldiveri out of Old Dominion. The Saints traded up again to pick QB Jake Haener out of Fresno State later in the 4th round, and then traded TE Adam Trautman to the Broncos for a 6th round pick used to select WR A.T. Perry out of Wake Forest.
"When you have four 5ths, that gives us an opportunity to ... take a couple of those and bump it up. But we won’t be thinking about that until we know who the players are that are gonna be available," Loomis said. "Is there someone that we’ve got really graded high that has dropped down and man, let’s put a target on them and find a way to go … get that player, because that’s what we’ve done historically, even in some of the later rounds. But that, that’s not a process that you spend a lot of time right now, there’s just so many variables."
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MORE FROM MICKEY LOOMIS
Does having so many Day 3 picks change your process?
“I don’t think it changes, I mean, we have a formula for how many players needs to be on the board for each one of our picks and it’s never failed, so yea – that really doesn’t change much. I think what’ll change is when we get to that day, when we get to Day 3 and we’ve got all these picks, that hasn’t been typically what we have, and who’s to say that’s what we’ll have when we get there.”
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Will new offense affect how you evaluate players for certain roles?
“I think it’s more nuanced than it is just these wholesale differences. It’s just the nuance of what this system and what these coaches want the players to do, and that’s part of the learning process for us is hey, what exactly do our coaches value in terms of what they’re asking the players to do, and – but it’s a lot more nuanced, I mean, look, we’ve got guys in our building that can do exactly what they want to do and some better than others, and so that’s part of the process that our coaches have to go through when they get … these players on the field and start talking about, you know, how they want to play and how they want them to play and there’ll be these little, subtle differences.”
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On waiting out the board at No. 14 pick
“We don’t have any control over that, so we’re just gonna have to really just sit there and see what happens in front of us and look, you know, we’ve got our – we’re gonna have our top 14 players and any time someone from behind that goes into the first 14, that’s a good thing for us. That’s the way I look at it, but we don’t have any control over that so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.”
