re: Any chance Saints Draftboard was leaked?

Yes. This is what he technically said, without anyone prompting him about Mahomes:

quote:

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Was it hard not to trade up to secure Marshon Lattimore?

"Yes, with that player (we) discussed with a couple teams moving up a pick or two picks up and then when it fell to two picks and they (Kansas City) drafted Patrick Mahomes and there it was for us then all of a sudden. That was part of the equation of (Marshon) Lattimore falling to us. Had they taken (Marshon) Lattimore then our next player we had Lattimore, then Mahomes would have been a guy we had real strong grades on."

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Mahomes was going to be the pick if Lattimore wasn't there. Payton hasn't mentioned one other player when talking about it.

And he candidly shares this stuff every year. With Vaccaro he said Jarvis Jones wasn't in the same grouping, and then listed the positions of the other 4(?) options were aside from Vaccaro. This year he specifically named the targets for 32 (minus one because he was likely still on the board heading into day two).

For him to have talked about this a few times and not mention on other name pretty much says it was Lattimore or Mahomes or they'd trade back (which he also said they'd consider if neither was there).