{"id":78701,"date":"2025-08-18T12:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78701\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T12:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:42:07","slug":"saints-jaguars-swap-linemen-in-trade-hours-after-playing-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78701\/","title":{"rendered":"Saints, Jaguars swap linemen in trade hours after playing each other"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New Orleans Saints and Jacksonville Jaguars are swapping a pair of linemen just hours after they played each other Sunday, league sources confirmed to The Athletic.<\/p>\n<p>Offensive lineman Luke Fortner will head to New Orleans in the deal, while defensive tackle Khalen Saunders will go to Jacksonville. The teams played to a 17-17 tie earlier in the day in New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Saints are acquiring Jaguars OL Luke Fortner in exchange for DT Khalen Saunders, per sources.<\/p>\n<p>New Orleans and Jacksonville played earlier today \u2014 and now, swap linemen. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/s7IGgc0evL\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/s7IGgc0evL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DMRussini\/status\/1957260965537333294?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 18, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Jaguars drafted Fortner, 27, in the third round of the 2022 draft out of Kentucky. He started all 17 regular-season games in each of his first two seasons with the franchise, but was relegated to a backup role last season.<\/p>\n<p>Saunders, 29, was a third-round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019 out of Western Illinois. Interestingly, Saunders might be the\u00a0second-most famous person in his family, as his older brother,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/khalen-saunders-brother-kameron-getting-better-football-knowledge-learning-taylor-swift-dance-moves-exclusive-8751348\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Kameron,<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/khalen-saunders-brother-kameron-getting-better-football-knowledge-learning-taylor-swift-dance-moves-exclusive-8751348\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0gained notoriety<\/a> as a backup dancer during Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cEras Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Saints Player Khalen Saunders Teams up With Dancing Brother Kameron Saunders For LGBTQ-Friendly Football Camp <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8PC6XhZQYT\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/8PC6XhZQYT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 TODAY (@TODAYshow) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TODAYshow\/status\/1939670350683361755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">June 30, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The younger Saunders was primarily a backup in his four seasons in Kansas City, earning Super Bowl rings in 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n<p>He signed with the Saints as a free agent in the spring of 2023 and started 27 games for New Orleans over the next two seasons. In 68 career appearances, Saunders has tallied 181 tackles, 6.5 sacks and an interception.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s linemen swap was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6559051\/2025\/08\/17\/eagles-john-metchie-texans-trade\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">second NFL trade of the day<\/a>. Earlier Sunday, the Houston Texans sent receiver John Metchie III and a sixth-round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles for tight end Harrison Bryant and a fifth-rounder.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">(Photo of Luke Fortner: Mike Carlson \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Saints and Jacksonville Jaguars are swapping a pair of linemen just hours after they played&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,1725,1727,1734,514,82],"class_list":["post-78701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}