The New Orleans Saints weighed their options with their first pick in this year’s NFL Draft.

With the third-to-last selection in the first round, Saints coach Dennis Allen said the team considering moving up. The Saints also considered trading the pick to move out of the first round all together if the value was right.

But the Saints ultimately decided to stay put with approximately five targeted prospects they figured would be available when their pick rolled around. And when the Cincinnati Bengals found themselves on the clock one spot ahead of the Saints, the team knew it would land one of the two players still left on their board.

“One of those was Bryan Bresee,” Allen told local media in New Orleans.

After the Bengals scooped up Bresee’s former teammate, Myles Murphy, the Saints followed by getting what they were looking for in Clemson’s former defensive tackle.

“This player is an exceptional talent,” Allen said. “He’s big. He’s physical. He’s athletic. He fills a position of need, and I think he’s going to be an outstanding addition to our team.”

The Saints were thorough in their homework of Bresee, a former five-star recruit whose three seasons at Clemson were filled with ups and downs. Bresee was the ACC Defensive Newcomer of the Year in 2020 before a torn ACL and a shoulder injury derailed his sophomore season. Personal tragedy struck last season when his younger sister, Ella, lost her fight with brain cancer.

The Saints met with Bresee at the NFL scouting combine in February before later visiting with him in Clemson. Allen said the team had dinner with Bresee during that visit before putting him through a workout at Clemson’s facilities the following day.

Allen said the team liked what it saw in those three to four hours that it met with Bresee during the pre-draft process, an important evaluation period considering Bresee had just 16 tackles and 5.5 tackles for loss in seven starts in his final season at Clemson. Allen cautioned not to look too deep into the statistical production with Bresee given everything he went he went through a year ago.

“It says a lot about the kid to overcome a lot of the adversity he’s gone through in the last 18 months with the death of his sister, Ella, and coming off an ACL and shoulder injury,” Allen said. “So he’s shown a lot of fortitude with his ability to overcome adversity, and I think that speaks highly to the player.

“He went through the whole physical workout. Medically, we felt comfortable with where he was at, so we felt comfortable with the player and taking the player.”

What Bresee brings to the table for the Saints in terms of his physical tools is a powerful, quick-twitched interior lineman that has unique mobility and agility at 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds. Allen also noted Bresee’s versatility, something he showed at Clemson by also lining up on the edge in certain defensive packages.

“I think one of the things that’s kind of unique about him is his athleticism inside is pretty impressive,” Allen said. “They used him a lot on the move at Clemson. His ability to move and penetrate is something that we liked.”

Bresee finished his collegiate career with 50 tackles, 15 tackles for loss and nine sacks in 26 games. Now he’ll start fresh in the Big Easy.

“He’s the type of person we want to bring into the building,” Allen said. “I think he’s going to be a great addition for us.”