{"id":297890,"date":"2025-08-18T11:50:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/297890\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T11:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:50:13","slug":"saints-to-trade-dt-khalen-saunders-to-jaguars-for-luke-fortner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/297890\/","title":{"rendered":"Saints To Trade DT Khalen Saunders To Jaguars For Luke Fortner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Saints are trading veteran defensive tackle Khalen Saunders<\/a> to the Jaguars, according to NFL Network\u2019s Tom Pelissero<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In exchange, fourth-year center Luke Fortner<\/a>\u00a0will be heading to New Orleans, per Pelissero<\/a>. Though they didn\u2019t match up on the field, both players appeared in the Saints-Jaguars preseason game earlier on Sunday in what turned out to be auditions for their new teams.<\/p>\n

Saunders, 29, started 27 games for the Saints over the last two seasons. He was not viewed as a good fit for the 3-4 scheme imported by new defensive coordinator Brandon Staley, according to Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football<\/a> and Jeff Duncan of NOLA.com<\/a>. With plenty of defensive line depth in New Orleans, the six-year veteran was deemed surplus to requirements and sent to Jacksonville to shore up their depth in the trenches.<\/p>\n

Saunders will join veteran starters DaVon Hamilton<\/a> and Arik Armstead<\/a> in the Jaguars\u2019 defensive line room. He can add some veteran experience to a backup rotation that currently features young defensive tackles Jordan Jefferson<\/a>,\u00a0Maason Smith<\/a>, and Tyler Lacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fortner, originally a Jaguars third-round pick in 2022, will likely push for the Saints\u2019 backup center job right away with Will Clapp<\/a> sidelined for the season with a Lisfranc injury<\/a>. The Saints have been evaluating their options behind\u00a0Erik McCoy<\/a> since Clapp went down; undrafted rookie Torricelli Simpkins got the start against the Jaguars with second year lineman Kyle Hergel<\/a> handling the rest of the snaps. Neither did enough to lock down the backup job, as evidenced by Fortner\u2019s arrival after the game.<\/p>\n

Fortner, 25, started every game at center in his first two seasons but lost his spot to veteran signing Mitch Morse<\/a> last year. Rather than go back to Fortner, the Jaguars opted to sign former Liam Coen Buccaneer charge Robert Hainsey<\/a> in free agency. They also added Patrick Mekari<\/a>, who is competing to start at right guard but has plenty of center experience from his time in Baltimore. Even if Mekari wins the right guard battle, he can still provide depth at center, as can seventh-round rookie Jonah Monheim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saints are trading veteran defensive tackle Khalen Saunders to the Jaguars, according to NFL Network\u2019s Tom Pelissero.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,125,6210,8474,896,55,2572,2571,6,397,3571],"class_list":{"0":"post-297890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","10":"tag-khalen-saunders","11":"tag-luke-fortner","12":"tag-new-orleans","13":"tag-new-orleans-saints","14":"tag-neworleans","15":"tag-neworleanssaints","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-saints","18":"tag-transactions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115049622922993244","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}