GM Mickey Loomis: Saints 'not afraid' to draft a quarterback

It's officially draft day, and the biggest questions all revolve around where the quarterbacks not named Joe Burrow will end up. Could Miami trade up for Tua Tagovailoa? Are the Patriots looking to replace Brady? There are countless questions and almost no answers. 

Saints GM Mickey Loomis only added to the chaos Wednesday when he said that New Orleans is open to drafting a quarterback, assuming the right guy is still available.

"I think that any time you have a chance to get a quality quarterback prospect, regardless of your quarterback situation, you'd like to take advantage of that," Loomis said in an interview with the Saints' official site. "For us, it hasn't come. There hasn't been the match where we're picking with a prospect that we really like. Our approach is exactly the same this year: If there's someone there that we really like and have a vision for at the time we're picking, then we're not afraid to pull that trigger."

The idea of a team with Drew Brees and Taysom Hill adding another quarterback to the roster may seem like overkill, but there's plenty of reasons to believe Loomis isn't bluffing. New Orleans has previously shown it has no problem having a plethora of starter-caliber gunslingers, which came in handy when Teddy Bridgewater stepped in for an injured Brees and won all five games he started last season.

With Bridgewater leaving for Carolina, the Saints may be looking for their next long-term starter. While Brees remains one of the league's elite quarterbacks, it's already been hinted at by coach Sean Payton that this might be the 41-year-old's last season. As for Hill, he certainly has hype, but at the same time, he will be 30 by the time the season is expected to begin, with no real proven track record as a starting quarterback. It's entirely possible the Saints are open to drafting a quarterback to learn behind Brees and possibly start when he rides off into the sunset.

All of this begs the question: Whom could the Saints be targetting? They currently hold the 24th pick and are unlikely to trade up, since they only have five picks in the draft, including no pick in the second round. It's hard to imagine that Tagovailoa or Justin Herbert will still be available unless one of them has an unexpected Aaron Rodgers-esque slide. Unless they are willing to reach for someone like Jalen Hurts, the most likely candidate seems to be Utah State's Jordan Love, who is widely seen as a high-risk, high-reward prospect.

None of us should be surprised if the Saints take a quarterback in the draft, but at the same time, it's entirely possible that the Saints have no real intention of taking a quarterback. That's what makes the draft so much fun. All of the endless speculating, mock drafting and overanalyzing tweets, knowing that ultimately we have very little idea of what's actually going to happen.