Thirsty Thursday for Saints? New Orleans has no 1st round pick - as of now - for NFL Draft

METAIRIE — With the 50th New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival kicking off on Thursday morning at the Fair Grounds horse race track and the 84th NFL Draft opening on Thursday at 7 p.m. with just the first round, the Saints front office could spend the day frolicking at the festival.

Singer Gal Holiday opens at 12:30 p.m. Thursday on the Gentilly Stage at the Jazz Fest with Amy Helm, daughter of the late Levon Helm of the Band, at 1:30 p.m. Earth, Wind & Fire will be wrapping up at 7 p.m. at the Acura Stage. 

The Saints are sort of off on Thursday because they do not have a pick in the first round this year as of yet as they traded that to Green Bay last year to move up from No. 27 in the first round to No. 14 and selected defensive end Marcus Davenport from Texas-San Antonio.

The Saints' first pick this year will be late in the second round at overall pick No. 62, which will not likely happen until about 7:45 p.m. Friday with the second round starting at 6 p.m. After that, New Orleans will not pick again until Saturday afternoon as it has a fifth round pick (No. 168 overall), two sixth round selections (177 and 202) and two picks in the seventh and final round (231 and 244). The fourth-through-seventh rounds begin at 1 p.m. Saturday.  

The NFL Network, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC will be televising the draft, and the Saints will be in that number of viewers on Thursday particularly.

“We’ll be watching, I guess Thursday night," Saints' general manager Mickey Loomis said Monday afternoon at a press conference at Saints' headquarters. "But we’ll be on the phones. We’ll be working the draft and managing the process.”

And Loomis and company could be restless. "Probably, we'll see what happens," he said.

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The Saints are known for wheeling and dealing during the draft, but it is unlikely they will trade up from the second round to the first as they obviously do not have a 2019 first round pick to use as trade bait to move up in the first round. The Packers, for example, got the Saints' later first round pick at No. 27 last year and a fifth round pick along with the Saints' first round pick for this draft, which will be at slot No. 30, for giving New Orleans their 14th pick of the first round.

"It's pretty hard to go from No. 62 into the first round," Loomis said.

The Saints could trade 2020 picks, and they are going for broke in 2019 as it appears that this really could be 18-year veteran quarterback Drew Brees' last season with the Saints and likely his last in the NFL.

“I don’t know," Loomis said. "We’ll see, because you can trade picks, and you can trade players, too. There are a few avenues to move up. But again we’re going to have to see somebody that we’ve got a target on. The honest truth is we’ve got less ammunition, less things to trade this year than we’ve had in the past. So that makes it a lot more difficult.”

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The good news is this NFL Draft appears to have depth at pass rusher, quarterback, tight end and to a lesser extent at wide receiver. The Saints may go the pass rusher or receiver route in the second round as they signed tight end Jared Cook and defensive end Mario Edwards in free agency in recent weeks. They also just signed backup quarterback Teddy Bridgewater for another season last month.

“I was visiting with Jeff Ireland (assistant general manager and scouting director) about that," Loomis said. "There are some pass rushers in this draft, probably more than what we ordinarily experience. I think the tight end group is pretty deep. Quarterbacks I think is a deep group. So, I think those three, but there are other positions. You can find wide receivers I think in this class as well. In general, we feel like it's a pretty deep draft.”

Then again, Florida offensive tackle Martez Ivey could go to the Saints at No. 62 in the second round, according to NFL Draft expert Mike Detillier of WWL Radio in New Orleans. 

"We're picking 62, so it's a lot tougher to predict who's going to be available to you," Loomis said. "But I like the position we're in. We had a list of items we wanted to get accomplished in the off-season, and I think for the most part we did that in free agency. That’s always a goal in the off season — to fill as many holes as possible so that you can put yourself in a position to just follow your board."

Without a first round pick for the first time since 2012, the Saints have still approached the draft the same way with the same preparation. But it is still different.

"We’ve done preliminary work to see who’s seeking trades," Loomis said. "If somebody else has a target, they start making calls. It's a little different when you don't have a first pick."

Barring a trade, the Saints will at least be well rested come Saturday — if they don't run over the the Jazz Fest.

"The process doesn't change," Loomis said. "But we did spend less time talking about the top guys. And when you have less picks, you get fewer calls."