2018 Saints Draft Review

            Last week, we offered a preview of the New Orleans Saints’ needs in the NFL draft. Now that the draft is over, let’s take a look how it went for the Saints. New Orleans entered the draft with 8 picks and thanks to a trade (discussed below) left Dallas with seven new players. 

Round-Overall Selection	Player	Position	College
1-14	Marcus Davenport	DE	UT-San Antonio
3-91	Tre’Quan Smith	WR	UCF
4-127	Rick Lenoard	OT	Florida State
5-164	Natrell Jamerson	S	Wisconsin
6-189	Kamrin Moore	CB	Boston College
6-201	Boston Scott	RB	Louisiana Tech
7-245	Will Clapp	C	LSU

            We’ll get to the other picks in a second, but we need to start with the Saints first round pick Marcus Davenport. New Orleans entered the draft with the 27^thpick in the first round. In order to move up to 14, the Saints traded with the Green Bay Packers. The trade is below. 

Saints receive: 2018-1-14 

Packers receive: 2018-1-27, 2018-5-147, and 2019 1^strounder 

            This trade is a massive overpay by the Saints. The team clearly identified pass-rusher as a need and grabbed the consensus second-best pass rusher in the draft, but paid a huge price to do so. Using the draft chart developed by Chase Stuart, which looks at historical production of draft picks, the Saints paid approximately 187 cents on the dollar for the right to draft Davenport. By the Jimmy Johnson chart, which looks at the perceived value of picks, the Saints still overpaid by a measure of 157 cents on the dollar. If we value next year’s pick at the middle of the 1^stround, then the Saints traded value equal to the 1^stoverall pick in the draft. Even if the Saints win the Super Bowl and only give up the 32^ndpick, they’ll have valued Davenport as equal to the 3^rdpick in the draft. 

Stop trading up! 

            The trade up—which we accurately predicted last week—highlights a number of troubling steps back for a Saints team that was a surprising contender last season. First, it is part of a long pattern of New Orleans management of sacrificing future draft picks to fill current needs. For example, in 2011, the Saints traded their 2^nd round pick (56^th overall) and 2012 1^st round pick (27^th overall) to the New England Patriots in exchange for a 2011 1^st round pick, 28^th overall. In essence, the Saints gave the Patriots a 2^ndround pick in exchange for waiting a year to move up one spot in the draft. The Saints have consistently undervalued future picks in order to chase wins in the short-term. In an interview after this year's draft, head coach Sean Payton revealed the team’s ignorance regarding how to value draft picks when he justified the trade up by saying, “[the trade] appears to be a lot ... but shoot, what's our country's national debt?” 

            Additionally, the trade repudiated last year’s draft successes. After years of trading up, last year the Saints received extra 1^stand 3^rdround picks for wide receiver Brandin Cooks. They then used those picks on players who stepped in and were effective starters. Marshon Lattimore, Ryan Ramczyk, Marcus Williams, Alvin Kamara, and Alex Anzalone all played important roles on the Saints and were a desperately needed infusion of young talent. They joined 2016 draft picks Sheldon Rankins, Michael Thomas, and Vonn Bell to form the basis for the next potentially great Saints’ team. If the Saints had been so successful at drafting and developing talent over the past 2 years, wouldn’t they want to hold onto their picks or even trade down to get extra ones, to bring in even more young talent? Doesn’t every NFL team want as many young, cost-controlled players as they can get so they can spend the rest of their salary cap on elite level talent and depth? 

Marcus Davenport 

            Besides paying too much in a trade, Davenport is a talented, but unrefined athlete who may take several years to develop into a top-flight pass rusher. That hardly makes sense for a team that is in win-now mode as Drew Brees nears 40 years old. Last season, the Saints drafted Lattimore and Ramczyk, two experienced starters from Big-10 programs. Davenport played at UT-San Antonio whose opponents last year included Southern, Marshall, UT-El Paso, and Rice—hardly a murderer’s row of opponents. If the Saints are going to give up a ridiculous amount of draft capital, then they should at least spend it on someone ready to step in and play Week One. 

            New Orleans’ third round pick Tre’Quan Smith fills a need for the Saints at wide receiver. With the departure of Willie Snead, the Saints had need for competition at the 2^ndstarting wide receiver position. After Michael Thomas, 33 year old Ted Ginn, better known as a returner, was slotted in as a starter. Smith also fits the profile of the Saints using mid-to-late round picks on wide receivers and turning them into effective players. The rest of the Saints draft is fine--4th-7th rounders mostly serve as depth and occasionally develop into starters--but failed to address any of New Orleans’ other needs at tight end, linebacker, and quarterback. 

            In total, the 2018 draft represented a significant step-back for a team that spent several years investing in the draft and rebuilding around young talent. Now that they’ve hit double-digit wins again, the Saints are back to trading away their future in pursuit of another Super Bowl.