TRADING PLACES in the First Round is Going to Be Tough for the Chiefs – The 2021 NFL Draft is still more than a month away, but there’s already been trades involving five positions in he first round with ten different teams involved… even though it seems like the Miami Dolphins are mixed up in most of those trades (in reality, four). However, that’s not the reason it will be difficult for the Kansas City Chiefs General Manager, Brett Veach, to arrange to trade up, if he so chooses. There will be plenty of GMs calling other GMs and singing: “Let’s Make a Deal,” so that’s not the problem either. The real issue for Brett Veach, this year, has to do with the absence of a NFC trading partner, in a position he can afford to trade up and into.
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Assuming the Chiefs will not be players for a top ten pick this year -– although I think anything is possible, this appears to be out of the realm of doable-ness in 2021 –- so, if he wanted to move up, who’s he going to trade with? First, let’s take a peek at those teams he could do the Dosey Doe with, while standing toe-to-toe, with an understanding that it would most likely be a NFC team who would be most willing to make a deal. Remember, when Miami, an AFC team, traded backwards to #12, and then back up again to #6, just last week, both times they were trading with teams from a different Conference (in the NFC).
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New Orleans or the Packers seem like worthless trade partners simply because a player the Chiefs truly covet is not likely to fall that far, and they might as well wait and stay at #31. Not only that, but they’d be an unlikely trade partner because if a player of that kind of value fell to the end of the 1st round, both the Saints and/or the Packers would most certainly want to take him themselves. Instead of wasting draft capital to jump up only one or two slots. Instead, Veach would have to leap tall buildings with a single bound to get up to #20 or #19 where the Bears and the Washington Football Team currently sit. To make a jump like that would depend a lot on having every position already filled to his satisfaction and yet he sees a player he wants so badly, he’s willing to give up half his draft this year (or all of it), or a high pick in a future year, or years.
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Ryan Tracy at RGR Football is someone I’ve worked with while at ArrowheadAddict and he’s also someone I admire and respect as a Chiefs analyst. However, he said recently that the “Chiefs could easily trade up in this draft” when I already knew that was going to be tough sledding. So, let’s take a look at what K.C. might have to give up in order to leap as far as picks 19 or 20.
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What this NFL Draft Trade Value Chart shows is that… if the Chiefs bundled every pick they’d have 1,115 Trade Value points to use to make that trade. That means the best they could do is to move up in a trade with Arizona. Why not Minnesota? Because it usually takes more points to trade up than what the Chart shows, unless it’s the higher team initiating the trade or is the primary one motivated to make a trade.
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Charles Goldman at Chiefs Wire said last week:
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“In the history of the NFL draft, there has never been four quarterbacks selected consecutively in the first four picks. Many are expecting that to happen this year with the Jaguars, Jets, 49ers and Falcons all positioned to take quarterbacks if they so choose. They’ll have plenty of options to decide from, but the top prospects are Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, BYU’s Zach Wilson, Ohio State’s Justin Fields, Alabama’s Mac Jones and North Dakota State’s Trey Lance.”
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This past week, while using a Mock Draft Generator, I was also given the opportunity to draft QB Trey Lance with the 31st pick (so I did with the knowledge that is Andy Reid could take him, he’d either trade him later for a good OL or train him up and trade him for more draft picks in another year)… but I know, with 1000% assurity (unless some strange catastrophe occurs), that Lance is not falling that far. The point is, the Chiefs are not giving up a King’s ransom in draft capital to move up, because a great draft prospect, which they covet, is not likely falling far enough down the board for them to consider jumping up. Not this year anyway.
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The next question then becomes: would you consider trading away this year’s plus next year’s first round choices to get the best OT in this draft? If you speculate that in 2021, the Chiefs only get the 24th pick in the draft (making the playoffs then losing… which doesn’t seem likely) then they could bundle their 600 value points this year together with their projected 700 points next year to jump up to pick #10? Well, Dallas ain’t having it… and for one or the other of Penei Sewell or Rashawn Slater to fall that far is no sure bet either.
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Can you see K.C. laying those cards on the table? Me either. That’s why I’d say… Trading Places in the first round is going to be tough for the Chiefs this year. Nearly impossible, if you want to go that far.
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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