New Orleans Saints Executive Vice-President/General Manager Mickey LoomisMedia Availability Following First Round of NFL DraftThursday, April 28, 2011 Can you talk to us about how the trade went down?

"I'll be honest with you. We're sitting there after our pick. Sean and I are sitting there and talking and it's like how can we get Mark Ingram? And so we just started making some calls to the teams to the back of the draft, found a couple teams interested, obviously there was that deal with Baltimore and Kansas City. That leaves a little uncertainty. You don't want to make a trade until you know who the picks are and what picks have been made in front of you. Once that was settled, New England called us back and wanted to make the deal. We're excited about it, real excited."

It's funny how you guys are going to end up with A's on the draft report cards because you ended up with two guys in the first round. Is it tough to give up a future first round pick?

"You don't want to give us an A ? Those things are really meaningless, those grades. Let's look back three or four years from now and see if this worked out and I think it will obviously or otherwise we wouldn't have made that deal. It's hard to give up any future pick. You have to feel good about the deal you're making. You have to feel good about that value before you do that and obviously we do. I think part of it is this, with Drew and the team we have now, we have a window of opportunity and so we want to do everything we can do to take advantage of that opportunity and that's why we made the deal."

Do you think you addressed areas of need?

"I think I said before the draft that the front seven was an area of need for us. With Cameron (Jordan), I think we've done that, he will be a good addition to the group we have up front already and we think he's a versatile player. He's a guy that can play inside as well as play end for us. He's a smart kid. He has an NFL pedigree with his father Steve Jordan. There are a lot of things to like about Cameron Jordan and then last year the experience we had going through running backs and injuries as opposed to the year before when we were able to run the ball effectively all year long, which plays into it. A the end of the year, we had the opportunity to get the best back in this draft and the last time that we were able to get a real strong running back was Deuce McAllister and it worked out pretty well. This guy has the same kind of character as Deuce so we're excited to add him to Reggie (Bush), Pierre (Thomas) and Chris (Ivory) and we have a coach and an offensive staff that knows how to take advantage of weapons and so the more that we can give to them, the better off we're going to be."
 How does this trade affect the rest of this draft. Would you like to get back in the second round?

"It's a good question. I doubt that,  but you never know. I wouldn't  have said at the beginning of the day that we were going to end up with two picks in the first round. I wouldn't rule it out, but it's not something that I'm thinking about or we're thinking about right now."

How do you feel about your needs now?

"I think when you get past that first round, you really just hoping that you will get some good players at any position. It's too hard to speculate who's going to be there, now that we're voided in the second round, for us to speculate who's going to be available in the third round, that's a pretty difficult proposition. What we will do later tonight and tomorrow is reset our board, not reset it, but we'll reexamine our board thinking about who are the players that might be available to us and what order we want them in. We'll look at that again against the roster we have."

When you said earlier today that you thought that there would be a run on quarterbacks with five being picked, did you think that Jordan and Ingram would be going in the top 20 or that there would be a good chance they could fall to you?

"No, we didn't think either would fall to us frankly. Yes, we had a group of nine players. Three were in the upper group and then the balance of six guys any of whom we'd be happy to have, but really four were above the others. We really expected all four to be gone. I wouldn't have bet a nickel that any would have been there when we picked and two were there. That was a bonanza for us. We made an attempt to move up a few spots prior to picking at 24 and couldn't make a deal. Sometimes the best deal is the one you don't make."

Did you think about how trading up didn't work out a couple years ago to get Beanie Wells?

"Yes, I mentioned the same thing. Two years ago we tried to do the same thing and weren't successful. It's good to be successful. It feels good."

This is the first time in a long time only one running back went in the first round. What made Ingram stand out?

"I'm not sure I really understand your question. Running backs are valuable in our league, still valuable. It's become more of a passing league, so it probably devalues the running back from where it was ten years ago, but they're still valuable players on any team, so obviously they're valuable to us because we have two first round picks and we have Pierre Thomas who we just re-signed not long ago and we have an undrafted free agent we think high of in Chris Ivory. We like our group of running backs. Sean will find a way to use all of them."

Does this not negatively affect your thoughts on Reggie Bush?

"No."

You want to keep him in the fold?

"Yes."
Do you feel good that you got two undervalued guys?

"Yes, we feel that way. It takes a while, a few years to judge that. We certainly feel good about this draft."

Did Ingram's toughness and ability to play through injury impress you?

"Yes, although, I would say this. We didn't ever question his toughness if he weren't able to go. He's just a quality, quality kid. We had him in here for a visit. We knew a lot about him. We did a lot of research and a lot of work in that area. He just came up with A comments from everyone that we talked to about him. I think this is a kid of the character that we would have said of Deuce when we got him. Now he has to live up to that. That's a pretty tall order, but he's certainly got a good start on it."

What do you expect happening tomorrow with the potential direction from the league?

"I'm going to address that tomorrow. I'm not really going to speak about that tonight."