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New Orleans Saints Executive Vice President/General Manager Mickey Loomis joined Zig Fracassi and Bill Polian on SiriusXM NFL Radio’s “Late Hits” Tuesday night to discuss the Jimmy Graham trade, Drew Brees’ contract and re-signing Mark Ingram. Below are some highlights from the interview.

On what went into the Jimmy Graham trade:
“First off, it’s hard to make trades in the NFL, especially bigger trades for really good players. We had a number of conversations with Seattle. At the end of the day it comes down to this: we have had a good offensive team for a number of years. We have finished top four or five in offense eight of the last nine years. We feel like we do well on that side of the ball, but we have to improve ourselves on defense.

“There’s three ways to get players in our league: free agency, the NFL Draft and trades. We believe in using all avenues so we took one of our assests on offense and turned it into some resources that hopefully we can improve our defense in.

“It was a tough decision because we love Jimmy Graham. He has been a great player for us. A kid we drafted as a prospect in the late third round. He’s done everything he can do to turn himself in a really great player. We will miss him but in order to improve ourselves we felt like we had to make a bold move so we did.”

On what they plan to do with the Seahawks’ first round pick:
“As we view the NFL Draft today, we think that there are going to be a lot of really good players available to us in that vicinity. You know how these Drafts go. You have an expectation for certain things and they may or may not come to fruition. There may be an opportunity to move up. We did that last year to get Brandin Cooks. We couldn’t move up a long ways last year but it got to the point where we could move up a few spots and get a player that we coveted. If that happens again this year, we are more than willing to do that. I would say going in, obviously based upon what I have already said, we would like to improve our defense but yet we are not opposed to taking a player that helps our offense depending upon what our board looks like at the time we take the pick.”

On adding C Max Unger:
“The interior line is an important part of our team, particularly with our quarterback. Max is going to fit in well. He’s a really smart player. We are looking forward to getting him on our team and integrated in our offense.”



Read more: Mickey Loomis talks about the Jimmy Graham trade

saintsfan1976

Jimmy you can come back as a 30 year old tight end after Seattle cuts you.

hitta

Jimmy Graham will be a productive player for Seattle, he is good... we've all seen it. I think Seattle has overreached though. It had a stable group of players, that it could probably keep for a long period of time. Could probably have kept the defense together. The trade is going to cause Seattle to end up with cap problems. Our team on the other hand is going to have quite a bit of wiggle room after this season. I like the trade, I think we've gone a long way towards fixing our O-Line. I feel like Brees when protected is the most accurate QB there is and I really believe that he is going to return to his high standard this season.

The pundits are saying we screwed up, but mark my words... we got the best of this trade.

saintsfan1976

Unger must stay healthy and we need to hit on our 1st round pick for it to be a good trade.

What Seattle did win is the instant gratification of pundits award. Whatever that means...

NOLA54

If we bounce back this season then Loomis made the right moves. If we don't then considering how he has handled our salary cap issues the last couple of seasons I say he will have to go. Did I really say that?

darksoul35

The second best player we have had in years is gone. I cant see how that makes you better.