Report: Commanders and Patriots are ‘apprehensive to trade down’
The NFL owners meetings are taking place this week.
There is discussion and voting regarding rule changes, and the media, of course, is finding ways to still talk about the draft ad nauseam until the day it arrives, Thursday, April 25.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter Monday recalled, “At the meeting last year, lots of talk on Aaron Rodgers and Lamar Jackson. This year, it will be the teams trying to come up to Washington’s spot at 2 and New England’s spot at 3 in the draft. Though, both teams are apprehensive to give up those picks.”
The thinking behind such a comment is that both the Commanders and the Patriots are in such dire need of a starting quarterback that they will be more inclined to not want to move back in the draft, choosing to stay put at No. 2 and 3 and therefore selecting their new respective quarterbacks.
Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy had his pro day last week and impressed, making a good enough showing that he is being projected even higher up the draft board by increasing numbers of analysts.
He is a good enough athlete that he has entered the second tier of Drake Maye, Jayden Daniels, and now McCarthy. McCarthy had initially been graded much lower due to the fact that the Michigan offense was a run-dominated offense.
Commanders head coach Dan Quinn recently referred to Daniels simply as a “game changer.” The signing of Marcus Mariota, also led to many instantly responding it meant the team was going to draft Daniels. But this conveniently ignores the Commanders actually first pursued Sam Darnold prior to Mariota.
All three of the second-tier quarterbacks have much growing to do in their NFL careers. Yet, they have displayed enough talent and mobility that they are considered to be high first-round selections.
If you are the Patriots or Commanders, you don’t want to get too cute here and trade down too far, not obtaining a quality quarterback in the draft.
Thus, the teams might indeed be increasingly apprehensive to trade down, just as Schefter expressed on Monday.
We still have another month of this…
