Trading up shouldn’t be out of the picture for New Orleans Saints

The New Orleans Saints have a history of making big-time trades in the NFL Draft. While they didn’t necessarily do anything noted as a blockbuster deal in 2020, they did trade up into the top 15 to select Marcus Davenport back in 2018.

While his career is still young, that seems to have been a mistake. On top of that, the Saints traded back into the 2020 NFL Draft to add Tommy Stevens, who is no longer with the franchise, another potential mistake.

However, these prospects are talented, and there’s no reason to believe this team won’t trade up with several compensatory picks inbound.

The New Orleans Saints are typically active during the NFL Draft, and they’ll potentially be one of the teams looking to trade up on Day 1.

The Saints have a few holes on their roster, but none are bigger than at the cornerback position. Losing out on Janoris Jenkins due to their insane cap situation is going to be brutal for the franchise.

There are high-impact cornerbacks available, but at 28, most may be off the board. Three really stand out — Patrick Sutton, Caleb Farley, and Asante Samuel Jr. All three are ranked by CBS Sports as top 27 prospects with Farley as high as No. 11 despite his back injury.

Farley and Sutton are the top two with Samuel Jr., Tyson Campbell, and Jaycee Horn coming into the second tier. That said, if the Saints can figure out where the five are going to land and which they value the most, they may opt to trade up.

The moral of the story is that they trade up to get who they want the most. They aren’t going to pray that player falls if they truly prefer one of the five. They wanted Davenport and wanted to at least give Stevens a chance.

Knowing their need at cornerback, if they want to target one of those players, they may have to trade up, and it would certainly make sense for them to do just that.