The Saints traded this year’s first-round pick during last year’s draft, and lost this year’s second-round pick as punishment for the bounty scandal. But New Orleans G.M. Mickey Loomis remains confident that the Saints are going to draft five players who can contribute this year.
Loomis told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that five picks will be enough to make the Saints better.
“We’ve traded picks away before,” he said. “I don’t recall off the top of my head a year where we didn’t have a first- or second-round pick, but look, that has happened before to teams. And we still have five picks -- third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh. So that’s five players we can bring in here to help contribute to our team. So we’ve got to do a great job with those five picks and sign some college free agents after the draft that can help us. And look, I think we get more focused, not less, when you’re short at the top of the draft. Because we have to do a good job, and we will do a good job with those mid-round and late-round picks because we have done that in the past.”
Although Loomis’s boss, Saints owner Tom Benson, expressed confidence last week that a deal with Drew Brees would get done soon, Loomis declined to talk about it at all.
“Yeah, listen, I’m not going to discuss Drew,” Loomis said. “The work on his contract -- it has been amicable. This isn’t a negotiation in the media. I’m not going to say anything about it.”
Loomis also couldn’t say anything about who the Saints’ coach will be for the first six games of the season. Joe Vitt takes over tomorrow as interim head coach during Sean Payton’s yearlong suspension, but Vitt is suspended for the first six games, and Loomis said no decision has been made about who will fill in for Vitt.
“I know,” Loomis said, “because I’m the one who’s going to make the decision.”