NFL Draft: Sean Payton shoots down report Saints tried to trade into the top-10

With the perspective that it didn’t get done, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton said they were not close to trading into the top-10 of the draft.

If the New Orleans Saints were going to trade up significantly in the first round of the draft, it was going to take a lot. Moving from No. 28, where they ultimately took what looks like a reach in Houston defensive end Payton Turner, was going to take a lot of pick capital.

Buzz through the week suggested the Saints wanted to get into the top 10, perhaps with an eye on one of the top cornerbacks in this draft class. Head coach Sean Payton openly said cornerback was a position of need going into the draft.

Ultimately of course, New Orleans stayed put and took a player they liked elsewhere on the defensive side of the ball.

Sean Payton uses clarity of hindsight to deny reports of Saints effort to trade up

If a team wants to trade up, and do it by roughly half the first round as they Saints may have wanted to, it takes a team equally willing to move down as the picks start to unfold. Calls are made, and a lot of the time, a deal just doesn’t come together for one reason or another.

Payton cited those factors when asked about the Saints wanting to move up on Thursday night, while also saying “we never got to the point where you would say it was serious…at all.” Coach-speak, with a draft tilt — especially after it was reported by ESPN’s Dianna Russini that New Orleans was very much trying to trade into the top 10.

From the hindsight perspective of the Saints failing to move into the top-10, or top-15, it’s easy for Payton to say it was never serious or it was never close to happening. Reporters have to ask the question, but Payton was not going to say anything other than what he did.