By John DeShazier | Senior Writer - NewOrleansSaints.com
Talent was the target, New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton said.
That's how the Saints wound up drafting University of Houston defensive end Payton Turner in the first round Thursday night, No. 28 overall.
New Orleans explored moving up in the first round, Coach Payton said, but couldn't construct a fitting scenario. So the Saints stayed put and added a 6-foot- 6, 270-pounder who had five sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss in five games as a senior.
"You do your homework, you explore possibilities of moving," Coach Payton said. "You're never certain that a player is going to be available, and we weren't with this player.
"He's got a lot of traits that we value. He was a high-energy player, he's prototype, his size. We really had this player as someone that you couldn't help but notice. The makeup was good.
"You don't go into a draft necessarily sometimes saying 'this was a position.' You're really paying attention to the talent, and what I mean by that is, it might not have appeared to have been a player at a position we would want, but there were too many things that we felt gave this guy a lot of chances to be successful in our league. We're excited about it. We paid attention to all these guys in the defensive front, there are a lot of good players on the board still, and we were fortunate to get one."
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