Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

At what point did you guys kind of feel comfortable staying at 28 and saying we can get a guy who can help us? And also what do you like about the characteristics that Payton (Turner) brings?

"You do your homework, you explore possibilities of moving. And he was someone...You're never certain that a player is going to be available and we weren't with this player. Man, he has a lot of things, a lot of traits that we value. He was a high energy player, his prototype, his size. We really had this player as someone that you couldn't help but notice, the makeup was good. And you don't go into a draft necessarily sometimes saying, hey, this was a position, you're really paying attention to the talent. And what I mean by that is, it might not have appeared to have been a player at a position we would want. But there were too many things that we felt gave this guy a lot of chances to be successful in our league. And so, we're excited about it. We paid attention to all these guys in the defensive front. There are a lot of good players on the board, still and we were fortunate to get one."

Would you say you were more active than normal looking to trade up? Or was this maybe more of a normal first round for you? How active would you say you guys were?

"Look, historically, Mickey (Loomis) and I both I would say (we) historically, move forward quite a bit. We've come into the first round, we've done that before. And so, look, I think, back in '06, '07, '08 and '09, you could really be active which we, I'm sure were at times. There's so many reports that half of it you believe and half of it you don't. But yeah, we were on the call and we spoke with (teams), we feel like it's our job to speak with people in front, just find out their appetite. One of the challenges, there's a lot of new GMs and head coaches and so, sometimes you have a relationship and you know that the appetite or palate someone has for making a deal. And so, we definitely were on the phone with a number of teams in front of us. But, I don't think that was unusually more than a year ago, two years ago. I think that's just how we approach it."

How much goes into this, if any at all, you talked about Ryan Nielsen, this offseason, keeping him and giving him a promotion, knowing that he'll be coaching a player like (Payton) Turner or does that even weigh on your mind when you're selecting a player like this?

"Yeah, look, I think No. 1, Ryan does a fantastic job and I think he and Brian Young, when given (assignments to grade) along with the scouts, when given these players to grade and evaluate and read, those opinions matter. I think most importantly the vision, the vision that everyone has and what we feel like the player can do early on. And it's hard to find those players, guys that we feel like can rush the passer, guys that have that stature. So, it was one of those picks that I know the scouts, as well as the coaches, all of us involved (were impressed). He is someone that has a fantastic makeup. So, he's exciting."


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Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

So, in other words, Turner was the BPA on their board.

Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

Payton pretty much said the choice was not based entirely on need, but Turner was the best player available at the time. And he is still a need since we run a DE rotation and lost Hendrickson from that rotation.

Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

Yup. That's what he said.

Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

Trenches still win games. Draft those guys all day long.

Things that stand out to me on the Turner pick:

- He wasn't in most mocks for rd 1 tells me we they really scouted this guy. Hard.
- The draft room was fired up after the pick. This was their guy.
- As soon as we were up, the pick was in. Again, the brain trust knew what they wanted.

I hope the Turner does well. Happy for him and his family.

On to Day 2 :bng:

Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

Turner said in his interview that his agent said his range would be between picks 20 and 40. These agents talk with every team and can get real scoops if they have a reputation of keeping things under wraps. He would have been gone by the Saints next pick mostly likely.

Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

Sean’s struggling to even put together coherent sentences. :rofl:

It didn’t go how they wanted it to.

“Look... the player... look, you watch the tape and... he has length and... look, you play out all the scenarios leading up to it... His character is great.” :rofl:

Re: Quotes: Sean Payton recaps New Orleans Saints Draft 2021 Day 1
 

If you look at their reaction to the announced selection it appears it went exactly as they had planned. I have little doubt he was right at the top of their draft board. These decisions are not made on the fly. They had spent time talking to and about Turner.

Besides, that is and has always been Payton's speech pattern.