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Loomis: 'You’re constantly gathering information'


As tempting as it may be to cement a decision for the New Orleans Saints in terms of a player or position with any of their nine draft picks in the upcoming NFL Draft, which is set to begin Thursday, it may not be the wisest course of action.

As fun as it is to play armchair general manager for the Saints in the draft – Round 1 will be held on Thursday, Rounds 2 and 3 on Friday and Rounds 4-7 on Saturday, in Chicago – the franchise’s actual general manager said that while one among the best players on the team’s board usually fits a need, sometimes an outlier can fall into the lap.

“I’ve said this in the past: What you’re hoping for is that when it’s time for you to pick you’re going to have two or three options, players with like grades,” Mickey Loomis said Wednesday in his predraft news conference. “Then, you can say let’s take the position that we have the most need for with these players that we view as equal talents. That’s generally been the case.

“Every once in a while, though, there’s somebody that just jumps out at a position that you don’t have a need for, that you feel like you’ve just got to take. We were talking this morning about Deuce McAllister (in 2001). We had Rickey Williams here when Deuce McAllister was available to us (at No. 23 overall, in the first round) and he just sat so far ahead of everyone else that we had graded when we took him, we felt like, ‘Hey, I know we don’t need a running back, but let’s take him.’

“That worked out pretty well.”


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Rugby Saint II

Loomis and Payton both interview well without giving away any info.