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Mickey Loomis' 2014 Saints draft recap

New Orleans Saints Executive Vice President/General Manager Mickey Loomis
Post-Draft Press Conference with New Orleans Media
Saturday, May 10, 2014

How do you weigh a previous injury with a player you are evaluating for the draft?
“We don’t have a set formula for that. Obviously we are well-informed about the injury status of these players. We have a great medical team and we ask a lot of questions. Sometimes we’re weighing the injury against where the player would be drafted if not for the injury, if we think there’s a great value there. Sometimes it’s an injury that we ask a lot of questions about if a surgery happens, the success rate for the surgery, (if it) is going to be an ongoing problem or is it something that is going to be corrected with the procedure. There’s just a lot of variables involved with that.”

You talked about your willingness to trade up if you had a conviction about a player. Obviously you had a conviction in Brandin Cooks?
“Yes, there were a few players that, going into the evening, we said if the opportunity presents itself we would move up, depending on the cost, to get one of these few players. Brandin was one of them. We had the opportunity to do that, and we were able to move up and get him at the cost of a third round (pick). That’s not inexpensive; that’s an expensive cost, and yet we felt that was worth it for us and for that player.”

Can you talk about your relationship with Oregon State coach Mike Riley
“Mike was a high school player in Corvallis, when I was growing up in Eugene. He was a really good player and I wasn’t, in all sports. We have a common background and obviously I’ve known about Mike for a long, long time. He was here with us in the early 2000s. He’s a great coach, a great person, and somebody that I can rely on to discuss any player that he may have or know about. I know this: when it’s a player that he’s had his hands on, I know that they’re well-coached. I appreciate the relationship that he and I have, and I know he’s got a lot of good things to say about Brandin.”

He downplayed his role in it. He said Cooks did it all on his own, and your staff saw that.
“Yeah I think it’s pretty obvious, the quality of player Brandin is, on tape. Obviously when you start talking about the intangibles, the character, the leadership, all those things that come into play, we’re relying on the people closest to him at the school for that information. The New Orleans Saints as an organization, I think, have a close relationship with Mike. Anytime our scouts go in there, they’re receiving great information and an honest picture from their staff, so there wasn’t really a lot to investigate in terms of Brandin’s character and all the intangibles. They’re top notch.”

It seemed that Cooks didn’t make a lot of visits and there weren’t many questions about him from any teams. Is that why you felt the need to jump up and take him from other teams?
“I think that’s exactly right, is that we felt like he was going to go before we got to our pick at 27. If we were going to have a chance to get him, we have to move up. I really thought that he would go even before he did, so in that regard, we’re pretty fortunate that he got to a point where it’s within range for us to move up. In terms of the visits, it’s easy to see how good of a player he is. All you have to do is sit down with him in one interview and you get a lot of the questions answered in terms of character and intelligence and football IQ and all of those things. It doesn’t require a lot of extra time.”

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