Just trade down! That’s the most common criticism you’ll find from fans reading the latest wave of NFL mock drafts, who don’t like the player their team came away with and would rather move back and get more picks. It makes sense, right? But it’s just not the New Orleans Saints’ style. They haven’t traded down since 2007, and they haven’t traded out of the first round at all in a generation or two. Don’t bet on it starting now.
For one thing, it takes two to tango. You can want to trade down all you like but if there isn’t another team interested in trading up to your spot, well, you’re stuck. And that’s been the case more often than not. Through the last ten drafts, teams have made about 60 picks in the range we’re focusing on at Nos. 27 to 32, and of those only eight trades have seen a team move out of the first round altogether — so maybe 13% of the time, if you’re being optimistic.
Take that low success rate with the Saints’ own established draft-day aggression, and you don’t have an environment conducive for trading down. Like it or not, the Saints are probably staying put or climbing higher. But what if they don’t? There’s always a chance they could change their approach, and every trend ends eventually. Maybe this is the year.
If that’s the case, here are the kind of returns New Orleans could earn by trading back in the 2023 draft: