Yeesh. At first glance, it looks like the New Orleans Saints won’t be big players in the 2024 NFL draft. The Saints have already traded three of their initial seven picks in the 2024 draft to facilitate moves with other teams. But more changes are on the way.
For one thing, the Saints are projected to receive at least three compensatory draft picks in 2024 for losing high-profile free agents in 2023: defensive tackle David Onyemata (fourth round) and defensive end Marcus Davenport (fourth round), as well as linebacker Kaden Elliss (sixth round). Depending on how things shake out with the comp picks formula, they could get another sixth rounder, but that doesn’t appear very likely. We won’t find out until March 2024 anyway.
But the knowledge that those extra picks are coming down the pipeline helped the Saints justify their decisions to spend a little more recklessly. They sent a third-round pick in 2024 to the Denver Broncos so they could get a second rounder back while trading former head coach Sean Payton.
Then they spent a 2024 fourth-round pick to upgrade one of their seventh rounders in 2023 to a fourth rounder, targeting Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener. Depending on where the Saints slot into next year’s draft order, they could essentially get that pick back as a compensatory selection for Davenport or Onyemata. Not a bad move.
If there’s an egregious trade involving one of their 2024 picks, it was the decision to send a seventh-round selection to the Houston Texans a few years back so they could bring running back Mark Ingram II back to New Orleans. But come on. Seventh rounders are little more than lottery scratch-off tickets, and the Saints haven’t hit on one of those since they picked Marques Colston back in 2006.
But the point here is that fans shouldn’t panic over seeing so few picks lined up in next year’s draft. The Saints are expecting to get back multiple compensatory picks which will do a lot to help them reload. They’re finally valuing those extra picks in free agency the way they should have been doing in years past. Hopefully they make the most of them.
With that said, here are the picks the Saints are currently scheduled to own in 2024:
- Round 1 (own)
- Round 2 (via Denver Broncos)
- Round 5 (own)
- Round 6 (own)
- Round 6 (via Philadelphia Eagles, either from Eagles or Tennessee Titans)
One other variable we don’t know about is whether that sixth rounder coming back from the Eagles (as part of the C.J. Gardner-Johnson trade last summer) will be the lower of their two selections, depending on where Philadelphia and Tennessee end up picking in the draft order.
Additionally, here are the picks they’re currently scheduled to make in the following years:
- 2025: Rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- 2026: Rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7
