This lines up with what we’re hearing from national outlets: New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis said Tuesday evening that he and the team were inclined to be buyers, not sellers, at the NFL trade deadline. Loomis commented on the situation during a regular appearance on WWL Radio with Mike Hoss, which you can listen to here.
“We talked to a couple of teams about a couple of things, more in the acquisition area as opposed to trading somebody,” Loomis told Hoss. “We didn’t really talk about trading anyone from our team. We did talk to a couple teams about an acquisition, but I wouldn’t say it ever got really serious.”
One player the Saints reportedly looked to acquire was Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, a favorite target of Derek Carr from his past experience with the team. But trade talks were scuttled in the hours leading up to the deadline, either through the teams struggling to work out the financial aspect or the Raiders firing anyone with authority to take Loomis’s phone call, including general manager Dave Ziegler.
Loomis added that these negotiations are often complicated by both team’s salary cap situations as well as the free agency outlook in the next offseason, not to mention their forecasts through the rest of the current season. It isn’t as simple as calling another team and offering a pick for a player before confirming a deal with the league office in New York.
And it’s easy to see why the Saints were looking to add more talent, not shed it. They’ve clawed their way back to a 4-4 record with several very winnable games in front of them; it will be a big disappointment if they don’t go into the bye week with a 6-4 record later in November. They’re coming off maybe their most impressive win of the season and they have few contracts that could be traded away for salary cap relief.
The talent on the roster isn’t the problem. It’s been the self-inflicted wounds holding them back: poor execution, mental errors, and too many sloppy penalties. If they don’t get to the playoffs this year, it’ll because of poor coaching and lacking effort on Sundays, not any lacking physical tools or pro experience.
