The New Orleans Saints could have as many as three picks in the final round of the 2025 NFL draft, or none. Right now it’s a whole lot of “maybe’s” and we won’t get real answers until compensatory picks are awarded in the spring. So what’s unknown?
Let’s start with the surest thing. The Saints have been consistently projected to receive a compensatory draft pick for losing cornerback Isaac Yiadom in free agency to the San Francisco 49ers. On top of his one-year, $3 million contract, Yiadom has been on the field for 51.5% of San Francisco’s defensive snaps, though he’s been losing snaps to a rookie lately. There’s a chance this pick ultimately won’t be awarded if he doesn’t play often enough, but for now we can assume it will be.
Now onto the next variable. What was initially reported to be a seventh-round draft pick coming to the Saints from their trade with the Washington Commanders for defensive tackle John Ridgeway III was later clarified to be a conditional pick. But those conditions remain unclear. Typically they’re tied to playing-time (either a percentage of snaps or a certain number of games) or performance for sacks, tackles, Pro Bowl or All-Pro recognition. The most realistic threshold for Ridgeway would be his snaps percentage, and right now he’s at 20.1%. That feels too low to qualify, but we don’t know for sure.
What about that other seventh-round pick? It’s another compensatory draft choice, but unlike others it wouldn’t be tied to a specific player’s departure. They rarely convey because so many teams work to get comp picks now, but if fewer than 32 comp picks are awarded then whichever team would be picking first in the eighth round would get it (remember, the draft has seven rounds of 32 picks with another 32 comp picks scattered throughout it). At the time of writing that team would be the Saints, who would own the last pick in the 2025 draft — also known as “Mr. Irrelevant.” It’s too soon to say whether or not this will actually come into play.
So all that’s said to say we don’t know if the Saints will own a pick in Round 7 at all, or if they’ll get to the podium three times in the 2025 draft’s final frame. With a legitimate rebuild on the horizon they need all the picks they can get, but knowing Mickey Loomis, he’d probably trade those picks to move up earlier anyway.
