A lot of work went into this New Orleans Saints mock draft. We didn’t just fire up The Draft Network’s Mock Draft Machine to accurately simulate seven rounds of selections, though that was part of the experiment. We also referenced data from Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football to define athletic prototypes the Saints reference on both offense and defense. That helped whittle down a big board of prospect grades from The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, allowing us to make decisions with a similar (but of course not equal) frame of reference to what the Saints will have. In the end, we had a pool of about 139 players to choose from out of the roughly-300 who are eligible in this year’s draft.

But this time we decided to pitch a curve ball by projecting several different trade scenarios. While the Saints have traded down in just two drafts since Sean Payton was hired to coach the team (two of the first drafts he conducted, in fact), they have traded up every single year he’s overseen the process, except for 2006. Read on to find out which moves we made, relying on our draft pick valuation chart to come up with realistic offers.

Of course, if you’re only interested in the results and not the lengthy process that went into making those decisions, you can learn what happened to each pick at our disposal in a summary at this link.

Round 1

The best players available on our draft board:

LB Patrick Queen, LSU
OT Josh Jones, Houston
WR Brandon Aiyuk, Arizona State
LB Kenneth Murray, Oklahoma
OT Austin Jackson, USC
RB Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin

In last week’s seven-round mock draft, we were also fortunate to have both of the top linebackers available. In this scenario, there are several highly-rated offensive linemen on the board. With both linebackers and Aiyuk up for grabs, we decided to try and trade down.

So, we first called the Miami Dolphins, offering the No. 24 overall pick for No. 26 — picking up their fourth-round selection (No. 141) along the way. They said no dice. Then we tried the Seattle Seahawks, picking at No. 27. We suggested swapping our first-round choice for theirs, while also trading our fourth-round pick (Nos. 130) and our sixth-round choice (No. 203) for their third-rounder (No. 101). Moving down a few spots and sacrificing that late-round pick was worth it to jump 30 spots up the board earlier on.

The Seahawks accepted that deal and selected Georgia Bulldogs right tackle Isaiah Wilson, who wasn’t even on our board. It’s also kind of realistic; Wilson’s name has popped up recently as a riser in media circles, and the Seahawks have botched several first-round picks lately like running back Rashaad Penny and pass rusher L.J. Collier, who couldn’t get on the field in the playoffs last year. Good luck, 12’s.

So back to our selection. None of the five players on our board had been picked yet, so we made a few quick calls to see if we could move down again. We tried to talk each of the teams picking immediately after us into giving up a fifth-rounder so they could leapfrog the others; the Baltimore Ravens (at No. 28) and Tennessee Titans (at No. 29) each turned us down, but the Green Bay Packers (owning No. 31 after an unrelated deal with the San Francisco 49ers) accepted. That netted pick No. 175, not too far off from the selection we ceded earlier.

And the only player in our cloud to be picked was Murray. Two others further down on our board (interior lineman Cesar Ruiz, pass-rusher Yetur Gross-Matos, and wide receiver Denzel Mims) were picked, but we’ve stretched our luck far enough. Another trade down would be too risky. So we went with Aiyuk, by far the highest-rated receiver available. His run-after-catch skills and straight-line speed should add a missing element to the Saints receiving corps, and seriously push Tre’Quan Smith for playing time.

Queen was considered here, but we picked him in the first round last time. By going in a different direction, we will can explore other opportunities to add a linebacker, especially with two third-round picks to work with. Here’s what our draft picks look like after those two trades, going into the second round:

Round 1, No. 31 (via Green Bay Packers, from San Francisco 49ers): WR Brandon Aiyuk, Arizona State
Round 3, No. 88: TBD
Round 3, No. 101 (via Seattle Seahawks): TBD
Round 5, No. 169: TBD
Round 5, No. 176 (via Green Bay Packers): TBD

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