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Brought to you by TRANESOUTH: It’s hard to stop a Trane<\/p>\nTwo words could best describe the mindset of GM Mickey Loomis and the New Orleans Saints on the even of the 2026 NFL draft: Consistent … and realistic. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Saints enter draft weekend with eight picks, including No. 8 and No. 42 overall, and fresh off a fifth straight season of missing the postseason bracket. The difference this time around is the team, due in part to necessity, finally leaned into a youth movement in 2025. Despite a 6-11 record, four wins in the final five games and the excitement surrounding young starting QB Tyler Shough is palpable. Still, Loomis made it clear he’s still playing the long game, and that will likely be mirrored in the team’s draft philosophy. <\/p>\n
“When you have a Drew Brees … that caliber of quarterback, you\u2019re always feeling like you\u2019re one player away, and so, man, let\u2019s go get the one player,” Loomis said. “And when you have a young quarterback and you\u2019re developing your roster, then you\u2019re not one player away, so you\u2019re less inclined to give up a number of assets to get one player.”<\/p>\n
We’ll have to wait until Thursday before we find out if that’s reality or just a smokescreen. Scroll below for more takeaways from Mickey Loomis’ pre-draft press conference.<\/p>\n
1. TRADE PHILOSOPHY … NOT CHANGING<\/p>\n
Every year about this time Loomis sits in a room with reporters and jokes that he has no issue with trading back in the right situation, and perhaps this is the year when that finally happens. Spoiler: It never happens. <\/p>\n
The Saints are frequently involved in trades going the other direction, trusting their scouting and making sure they get their targets. Being in a rebuild phase won’t change that. <\/p>\n
“We\u2019re going to approach this the same way,” Loomis said. <\/p>\n
It’s not complicated when it comes to trading up. You love a player, you go get him. But Loomis did offer some free insight into what it’d take to move down — and also a clear image of why it doesn’t happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scenarios would be, OK, we\u2019re at pick 8 and we\u2019ve got four guys that we love, and so we could go back to as far as 12. If there\u2019s two that we love, then we could only go back two spots, or someone comes in and says we\u2019ll give you three first-round picks to move, we have to do that, so it\u2019s either or,” Loomis said, “but I\u2019m not someone that wants to trade just to have a transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let’s put the Godfather offer off to the side, because that tells you a lot. Assuming a team is offering historically even value based on past trades and value charts, what Loomis is saying there is that the added value in a trade wouldn’t offset the tier drop in the caliber of player being drafted. If, say, there was a group of players all graded in the same range — let’s call it an A — and a trade back would still guarantee you can get that player, a deal can be made. If a trade back would mean dropping out of that range and landing you a player with a lower grade — say a B-plus — then it’s a no-go. <\/p>\n
That’s probably the most clear disconnect between the Saints and everyone else. Most people would consider the value added from the trade (extra picks) as being worth the tier drop. The Saints do not. With such a pigeonholed philosophy on what a trade back could be, it’s not hard to understand why it never happens. <\/p>\n
It’s worth noting that the Saints didn’t execute a single trade in the 2025 draft, the first time in 12 years they didn’t swing at least one deal, and came away with one of their most impactful classes in the NFL. <\/p>\n
2. TRADE TALKS HAVE ALREADY STARTED<\/p>\n
Get ready for the annual “Saints are one of the teams calling around on potential trades” post we get from insiders the morning of every draft. It’s always the case and it’s always true. <\/p>\n
Why? Because that’s just what the Saints do. They make calls, assess prices and go from there. It’s not necessarily about having a higher inclination to trade than any other year, but if they do go that route, they want all the intel possible. <\/p>\n
Loomis said as of noon Wednesday he’d already heard from multiple teams with queries about potentially trading in both directions, and regarding multiple of the Saints’ picks. <\/p>\n
“It remains to be seen how much of that activity occurs, but I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s a lot different than the past,” Loomis said. “But again, picking in the top 10 is a different \u2026 thing than picking in the middle or the back half of the round. You get fewer calls when you\u2019re back there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bulk of the trade chatter will be Wednesday night and Thursday morning, but the framework of any deal hammered out will also be contingent on how the draft goes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not trading up for the spot, you\u2019re trading up for a player,” Loomis continued, “and so it\u2019s always, OK, is the player available.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. OUTLOOK FOR JORDAN AND KAMARA?<\/p>\n
The Saints have maintained all offseason that there’s been no resolution in either direction for a pair of veterans in DE Cam Jordan and RB Alvin Kamara. <\/p>\n
Jordan is a free agent, while Kamara is under contract — but the team did rework his deal to create flexibility if he was off the roster next season. The door is not closed for either to come back, but Loomis did confirm that the results of this week’s draft could make a difference in the ultimate result. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that [the draft] could impact it,” Loomis said. “You know, we\u2019ll see what happens, and that goes both ways, it could impact them, from their perspective as well as ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
He went on to add: \u201cThose are two-way questions, right. They have things that they have to determine and we do, too, so we\u2019ll see what happens after the draft.\u201d<\/p>\n
While still vague, this is the first time we’ve heard a Saints official confirm that there is uncertainty around Kamara’s future with the team. In the end it’ll be easy enough to keep score. The only way the draft could impact those players is if the Saints add numbers at their positions, and most significantly if that happens early. If the Saints add a Day 2 running back to an already crowded room, that’ll tell you a lot. Same goes for defensive end. <\/p>\n
4. NOT SEEKING OUTLIERS<\/p>\n
A topic that comes up every year around draft time: What does the league do with highly productive college players that don’t measure up perfectly for their respective positions? <\/p>\n
Does the video tape outrank the measuring tape, or vice versa. The past two years we’ve seen a pair of players face short-armed questions. LSU’s Will Campbell faced those questions but still went No. 4 overall. This year it’s Miami’s Rueben Bain who measured in at the combine with arms more than an inch shorter than the minimum teams look for (32 inches). <\/p>\n
Loomis spoke to how he assesses those situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think how the guy plays always overrides everything, so let\u2019s start with that,” Loomis said. “But I do think this, we\u2019ve got a lot of data that tells us what plays in the NFL … and we have some measurements that we can look at and say man, that\u2019s an outlier. We\u2019re not looking for outliers. … I\u2019ve said this over the years, if we are looking for exceptions then we\u2019re not going to be here very long, because exceptions are exceptions, so we\u2019re not looking for exceptions, but we recognize that there are exceptions, so if someone has some traits that don\u2019t match what plays in the NFL, then we\u2019ve better have some other things that tell us that he can overcome that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Loomis went on to describe the Saints’ philosophy as being among the more “risk averse” in the NFL, and they’ve typically valued ideal measurables highly. The risk becomes greater the higher a team is sitting in the draft because of the caliber of players available. <\/p>\n
Bain has landed all over the first round in mock drafts to this point, but he could certainly be available when the Saints go on the clock at No. 8. The Saints’ dedication to ideal measurables could be put to the test. <\/p>\n
5. NUSS AND NUSS<\/p>\n
When we spoke to Garrett Nussmeier at LSU’s pro day, he indicated that his draft watch party would be in New Orleans so that his father, Doug, could potentially sneak away and be with him when Garrett’s name was called. Turns out he’ll be able to do a lot more than that.<\/p>\n
Doug Nussmeier, the Saints OC, is being allowed to take in the draft with Garrett rather than be in the Saints’ war room.<\/p>\n
\u201cI advise him to spend [the draft] with Garrett,” Loomis said. “It\u2019s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Saints GM added that Doug will be available and his input is valued, though most questions have already been answered by this stage. Garrett is expected to be a Day 2 selection. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two words could best describe the mindset of GM Mickey Loomis and the New Orleans Saints on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[4955,7,574,896,55,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-872136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mickey-loomis","11":"tag-new-orleans","12":"tag-new-orleans-saints","13":"tag-neworleans","14":"tag-neworleanssaints","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116450104707027140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872136","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=872136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}