With an open Super Bowl window, the New Orleans Saints have an important task with the 2019 NFL Draft; keep the window open.
The New Orleans Saints are going to be staples in the NFL playoffs and continue to make Super Bowl runs as long as Drew Brees and Sean Payton are together. 2018 was no different for this team. Building on a historic draft class from the 2017 NFL Draft, the Saints were expected to make a deep playoff run in 2018.
A midseason nine game winning streak eventually propelled them to the top of the NFC South. Once they got to the playoffs it was a controversial call, that literally has rewritten the rulebook, that kept them out of the Super Bowl.
Brees and Payton have to be hunting for revenge. They wasted no time this offseason either. New Orleans replaced center Max Unger with former Viking Nick Easton in what may be a lateral move. In the backfield another former Viking, Latavius Murray joins Alvin Kamara. Murray will be a replacement for the now Baltimore Raven Mark Ingram. Kamara should see a much bigger load in this offense though as Murray is not the same caliber of player as Ingram.
At tight end they continue to lean on veteran players, this time grabbing Jared Cook. Coming off the best season of his career, Cook is a short-term answer for this offense. Defensively the addition of Malcolm Brown and Mario Edwards to join Sheldon Rankins in the middle should do wonders for their run defense.
Looking forward to the NFL Draft and the Saints are one of three teams without a first round pick. Their selection would have been 30th overall that is now owned by the Green Bay Packers. The Packers acquired that pick in the 2018 NFL Draft when the Saints traded their own first rounder in that draft and their 2019 first rounder to move up and select edge rusher Marcus Davenport. A lot rides on Davenport this season. New Orleans needs him to produce opposite Cameron Jordan in order to justify that move.
This mock draft will look to make the best of the limited picks New Orleans has in the 2019 NFL Draft. The mock draft was done using The Draft Network’s mock draft machine and the site’s predictive big board. There are no trades, only the teams selecting in their respective draft slots.