The Saints trading up to 14, which gave the Packers two first round draft picks, came as a shock to most. No one knows for sure what happened leading up to the trade, but I like to imagine it going down like this from the perspective of the Packers draft room.
Gutey puts his hand over the phone and yells “Hey everyone, be quiet, you gotta hear this!”
The room goes silent, Gutey puts it on speaker. “Say that again now.”
Saints GM Mickey Loomis: “We want to trade up for Davenport, we’ll give you a 1st and a 2nd.”
Eyes get wide all over the room, Gutey puts a finger over his mouth to quiet them. “I don’t know Mickey, that doesn’t seem like enough for a guy who played at UTSA, he put up 21.5 sacks in just 4 short years over there. Pretty impressive, that’s actually who we were thinking of taking.”
Loomis, sighing deeply: “Fine, what do you want?”
Gutey, tries not to laugh while looking at all the other scouts: “Two firsts.” The whole room snorts and chortles, trying to keep it down while Gutey laughs and shushes them.
Loomis, sighing even deeper: “But we only have one first rounder this year.”
Ted yells from the back: “Then give us next years!”
Gutey gives Ted a throat-slash gesture while everyone tries to contain their chuckles.
Loomis: “I don’t know, that seems like a lot…”
Ted motions to Gutey and everyone eggs him on.
Gutey: “Well, Atlanta wants to move up for Derwin James – you really want to deal with him going up against old man Brees?”
Loomis: “So our first this year and our first next year for your 14th overall pick?”
Ted yelps from the back: “And a fifth!” The whole room is red-faced, one person does a spit take all over a framed picture of Ron Wolf.
Loomis: “What was that?”
Gutey: “Yes uh…” coughs to cover his laugh “We also want your fifth rounder this year.”
Loomis: “What!? That’s ludicrous, you guys-”
Ted hollers from the back: “Gutey, hang up on that dope, we got Carolina on line 2!”
Loomis: “Ok! Ok! Two firsts and a fifth!”
Gutey barely slips out “Ok, bye” and presses the button to hang up before bursting out into laugher with the rest of the room. After a solid minute of people catching their breathe through uproarious laughter and dabbing their eyes, someone points at Ted who has a little wet spot on his pants from laughing so hard and the whole room breaks into laugher again.
Just then, the speaker phone cackles.
“Guys, it’s Mickey Loomis. I’m still here, and you guys are a bunch of dicks!”
Even more laughter.
No, I don’t know if that’s for sure what happened, but I like to imagine it was the way things went down. It could have been different though. Maybe it wasn’t a last minute thing.
There were rumors of a big splash all week, followed immediately by back-tracking on what “big splash” actually meant. It’s entirely possible that the Saints had that the player and the target set months in advance when their board was complete, making it possible this idea was already worked on, contingent on Davenport being available, a long time ago.
Maybe it was a combination of the two – maybe they had a deal worked out a long time ago then, at the last minute, with Derwin James and Tremaine Edmunds available, Gutey played hardball and upped the ante!
“Ok, Gutey,” Loomis says, “back in January, we had a deal in place for a 1st and 2nd if Davenport was availble.”
Gutey leans back in his chair and lights up a cigar. “That was when Derwin and Tremaine were supposed to be gone.”
Loomis leans over the table, wagging his finger in Gutey’s face. “We had a deal! Ted would never go back on his word.”
“Well Ted’s not here any more, Mickey,” he said, leaning over the table, cigar ash fluttering to the felt, “maybe I change my mind, see? Maybe the Buccaneers want to moveup for Davenport. You want this guy, it’s gonna be on my terms.”
I honestly have no idea how it went down. Odds are, the entire true story from both sides will never be known by one person.
However, it’s a lot of fun to speculate.
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