Are the Saints innovating with their treatment of draft picks? (1 Viewer)

[Vermont Saint]

Does anyone else here think that the Saints, in the last few years, have a slightly different approach to valuation and use of their draft picks than most of the other teams in the league? If so, I am wondering if this represents an innovation, or if it is simply a response to the combination of a historically strong draft class, good mid level free agent signings and their longstanding ability to identify and develop strong undrafted players.
In short, the Saints seem largely unconcerned about maintaining draft capital, or the temporal aspect of draft picks-they are more than willing to trade that capital, from any potential future draft, to obtain things they consider more valuable. I am wondering if this is something we can expect to continue as an ongoing approach, or is it only possible because of our young roster. I think its a mistake to attribute any of these moves (Kamara, Davenport, Bridgewater and Apple) to a "win now with Brees" approach- for some reason most of the lazy national media have taken this angle, no matter how poorly reasoned. I think that each move stands on its own as benefiting the team without qualification, and would be made regardless of Brees' "window". Are the Saints taking a new approach here? Your thoughts.....

 

[rsmith2783]

Personally, I don't think it's anything new. Under Payton, we've never really held on to draft picks like other teams do.

 

[Taker597]

We just got old at the wrong time and we leaned on some very bad draft classes as a whole.

We probably one of the best drafters in the last decade. We've done thing that most teams probably would never done in our time span.

Then, we keep evolving our draft process and it's to the point. If we really got an eye for a talent. Trading up for them is usually the right decision.

 

[dgrant]

With the Bridgewater trade and Apple trade, I agree with the philosophy. Acquire young, somewhat proven players, with untapped potential over unproven players requiring at least a year to develop. Go all in on drafting players you know will excel. The strategy seems quite genius to me.

 

[Saint Spud]

I think it’s a combination:

1. We hit big on our drafts of the last couple years after whiffing badly before. That’s created a good problem: too many good players.

2. Because of 1, we haven’t really had spots for a lot of draft picks. Hence the “good problem.”

3. We are maximizing Drew’s final couple years.

I do have some concerns that this will eventually catch up to us: what happens when rookie deals run out and we have to pay Jordan, Kamara, Thomas, Lattimore, Williams, etc AND a new QB? And we don’t have guys on rookie deals to take their place?

But I’m not worried about that now. There’s no guarantee we’ll ever find someone on Drew’s level again. Gotta go for it.

 

[SammyDaLoon]

Necessity is the mother of invention ... I believe they’ve had many sitdowns on how to capture more superbowl titles while Brees is available. Voila...A New Method is Born albeit with little Madden’esq twist to it

 

[Saint Droopy]

We ran into a problem this year with our picks we didn’t have much spac on our roster so we ended up cutting guys that we would have loved to hold onto. I think we’ll “get back to normal” in the 2020 draft but the team is really trying to win now. Picks be damned

 

[Indonesianwhodat]

I think it’s a combination:

1. We hit big on our drafts of the last couple years after whiffing badly before. That’s created a good problem: too many good players.

2. Because of 1, we haven’t really had spots for a lot of draft picks. Hence the “good problem.”

3. We are maximizing Drew’s final couple years.

I do have some concerns that this will eventually catch up to us: what happens when rookie deals run out and we have to pay Jordan, Kamara, Thomas, Lattimore, Williams, etc AND a new QB? And we don’t have guys on rookie deals to take their place?

But I’m not worried about that now. There’s no guarantee we’ll ever find someone on Drew’s level again. Gotta go for it.

Agree

Drew has 3 years left - and thats probably a best case scenario

Kamara, Lattimore, Williams will likely still be on their rookie contracts or at most their 5th year option

Gotta go for it in this 2-3 year window.

 

[WhoDat_SB44]

I think after the huge success we had last year in the draft and on the field, the team saw our chances to contend for a ring increase tremendously. And if not for a fluke bone headed play to end our season, who knows where we would of finished. So coach saw our window of winning a ring being possibly 2 to 3 years. He looked at the roster and said we need to fill in the holes we have now to increase our chances.

We signed a better coverage safety in Kurt Coleman to replace Kenny Vaccaro. I think that was somewhat a mistake signing him too early not knowing that the safety market would be the way it was in free agency. I bet coach wishes he had waited a bit cause we could of signed Tyrann Mathieu who would of been a way better move. Then we signed one of the best MIKE LBs out there in DeMario Davis. I don’t know why we decided to play him at WILL though when we had the 3rd best coverage LB in the league in Craig Robertson. Still a great move cause he plays MIKE in the nickel & dime packages. He’s also a great WILL, but I think would be even better at MIKE. Then we signed the best slot corner in football from a year ago in a guy we drafted, Patrick Robinson. That was a huge need fulfilled, but unfortunately he got hurt & is out for the year. Then we decided to upgrade our 3rd receiver by signing RFA Cameron Meredith who was the Bears #1 WR two years previously. Fortunately the Bears didn’t match and we subsequently let Willie Snead sign with the Ravens. We tried to bring back Jimmy Graham, but he decided to sign with the Packers. So we brought in our last good TE in the class act that is Ben Watson. We resigned Alex Okafor after he had a great year with us till he got injured. Then we flirted with bringing in FA DT Ndamukong Suh, but he went with the Rams & whose to blame him lol. If that possible move & trying to bring back Jimmy didn’t show that we were in win now mode than I don’t know what else can besides trading our 1st next year lol. We also brought in Tom Savage to possibly be Drew’s backup after not bringing back Chase Daniel. We also signed Mike Gillislee to fill in for Mark Ingram due to his 4 game suspension.

Then in a shocking move we trade next years first round pick to move up to draft DE Marcus Davenport. A great DE opposite of Cam Jordan has been a need for years. We take a good WR in Tre’Quan Smith to pretty much take Brandon Coleman’s spot. Then the rest of the draft was a waste besides LSU’s Will Clapp and possibly La Tech’s Boston Scott.

Then to start the season we unexpectedly trade for QB Teddy Bridgewater to possibly be the heir apparent to Drew Brees. I saw this as a must move cause with our really talented roster and older QB, we needed a competent backup in case Drew were to get nicked up and miss a game or 2 like he has before. Tom Savage was not that guy by a long shot.

We started off terrible as usual with a loss to the Bucs. Coach showed some big cahones to trust Taysom Hill to do as much as he has done to help this team win games. And IMO he has done a lot and made this the best offense we have ever fielded. Our defense did not look anywhere near as good as it did last year and the play of Ken Crawley had a lot to do with that. So after week 6, we traded a 2019 4th & 2020 7th I believe to the 1-6 Giants for their starting CB Eli Apple. Great move that was extremely needed. Now hopefully we will start playing Craig Robertson more as well cause IMO he had a lot to do with our success on defense last season.

So in conclusion we are totally in win now mode with a small window to win a ring due to Drew Brees age and a lot of players coming up for new deals in the next few years. But us playing a 2nd year LB over a LB that was our best last year points to us not being in win now mode. Unless we are saving him for when the schedule gets tough, but that would be kind of upsurd like only playing him 33 snaps on defense in 6 games.

 

[MV2]

The biggest reasons for this, in my opinion, are our window and lack of available roster spots to keep all draft picks. Barring injury, we have the best roster we've had in many years. We may only keep 2-3 draft picks anyways. If those picks can give us a player to help now and someone with NFL experience then the time is now.

The frustrating part is that we, once again, seem to have made a bad free agency acquisition on defense. We didn't want Vacarro so we sign Coleman and thus far aren't even seeing play close to Kenny's level. Add to that, we are giving up draft picks that could land us his replacement.

I still love the Apple signing, but at this point we will have to have a smart offseason to offset the lack of draft assets.

 

[Alaina]

We're desperately in win now mode. Like Brees says about his career, once that winning window closes, it's over. We're gonna be in rebuild mode for a while.

I mean maybe we get lucky with Bridgewater and he lets loose and we can resign our young players to keep into their prime, but chances are once Brees leaves, this team will be shattered for at least 2-3 years. Especially if Brees decides he wants to play in 2020 and Bridgewater just doesn't wanna wait that long to start.

 

[SaintsJunkie]

I think we are foolish, we just get good a picking and have no picks, selling out for ONE YEAR and not like a three year span by collecting draft picks