B+
New Orleans Saints
Nobody dealt better than the Saints this weekend: B+.
by New Orleans Trade Down ·
2026 NFL Draft
· 11 picks
· 4 steals
· 4 reaches
Some picks age like wine; Eli Heidenreich at the Round 6 slot will need to, sitting 52 spots clear of his grade. More right than wrong, and a B+ to match.
The trade ledger is the best part of the whole weekend. For all the activity, running back went untouched, which is hard to explain. Bell at that cost is the sort of edge that compounds over a roster.
A tidy weekend of work that should hold up just fine.
Pick-by-Pick
In pick 28 they get a go-to option on the outside. It fills the loudest need on the roster.
Zachariah Branch at the 38th pick is the pick scouts circle, and not in a good way. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
Good price on Dillon Thieneman in pick No. 42, a hair ahead of his grade with no real quibbles. A minor itch, scratched.
They did well to land Jake Slaughter in No. 59, just ahead of his grade. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
Value with a capital V on Keionte Scott in Round 3, Pick 9, a genuine coup. Top of the wish list, and they did not leave without it.
Taking Skyler Bell in the 106th overall pick is close to grand larceny; a wide receiver that good had no business lasting this long. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
Jack Endries slid further than he should have, and slot 132 is lovely value for the tight end. A need, and now a little less of one.
Beau Stephens in pick No. 136 is a reach so steep the board needed a second look to believe it. It also answers one of the loudest questions on the roster.
They reached into another round for Trey Moore, and the board is nowhere close to agreeing. This was priority one on the needs board, and now it is handled.
They read the board right and Drew Allar was the payoff at the Round 5 slot. Another box on the needs board, quietly ticked.
They talked themselves into Eli Heidenreich at No. 190, and the board did not agree. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.