Round 4

Not gonna lie: a lot of players we liked were picked off in this round. Backup linebackers and cornerbacks with special teams upside, productive wide receivers with poor athletic testing numbers, versatile offensive linemen from smaller programs, and reserve quarterbacks from pro-style offenses didn’t pass through unclaimed. There’s definitely a benefit to not trading up as frequently as we’ve done here to pad out the middle class of the roster.

However, the Saints have guys like all of them already. Some of them were drafted just last year. Any rookies the Saints pick from here on out are going to have a tough time of making it through roster cuts, and many of them will be competing against their own doppelgangers. In this case, we’re happy with our choice to target easier scheme fits with more talent earlier in the draft by aggressively navigating the board.

Round 5

There weren’t any appealing options here. The only top 100 prospect on our board left available was North Carolina left tackle Charlie Heck, a tall prospect who struggles to bend low enough to compete with flexible pass rushers. So we made some calls about trading down, trying to add a seventh-round choice, and found a taker in the Miami Dolphins.

We swapped our fifth-round pick (No. 169) for their sixth- and seventh-round choices (Nos. 185 and 227), plus a seventh rounder in 2021. We’ll toss it on the stockpile.

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