I’ve been getting a lot of Tampanians lately, reiterating to me, and most of them fervently, that they think that the Bucs are going to trade out of the 3rd spot in the draft. Fans love draft day trades, but they rarely come to fruition. Most of the time, the same reason that team A wants to trade out of the spot, or potentially trade out of the spot, is the same reason why Team B doesn’t want to move up, money. Most of the trading that occurs during the draft, occurs in the later rounds, as the financial ramifications for players is much less. I don’t think there is a chance in hell that if Gerald McCoy is around at 3, that we trade out of that spot.
The only time major trades happen in the top of round 1 is for teams to acquire QB’s. It happened last year with Mark Sanchez and Josh Freeman. There are a few teams that value their board so much (rightfully so) that if they think they are about to drop down a tier of player, they will make the necessary move to trade up and acquire the guy they have been targeting.
I personally am just not seeing too many teams that are in dire need of a QB that would see us a trade partner to move up with. Sam Bradford is clearly the number one QB prospect at this point, and being as though we are not going to draft him at 3, why trade with us? Same goes for the Lions, so the one potential trading partner would seemingly have to be the Rams.
Oakland, Cleveland, Carolina, would be the only teams in my eyes that have glaring QB issues, and as mentioned before, I’m just not seeing why any of those teams would see us as the logical trading partner. Carolina doesn’t even have a first round pick, so we can immediately rule them out, and Cleveland and Oakland pick in the top 10 themselves. If one of those two teams thought that they had to move up to 3 to take Jimmy Clausen and beat out the other team, then that makes us a viable option, but I am just not seeing that possibility arising. Oakland couldn’t stomach the money it would take to pay out Clausen and Fat Boy Jamarcus Russell at the same time, so you can pretty much rule them out from trading up to 3. So that leaves the Rams and the Browns as teams that need a QB that have the ammo to get one, and the Rams pick first themselves. There was some reports that came out yesterday that the Browns had talked to the Rams about moving up to 1 to take Sam Bradford but once again, I’m not seeing how we are in that equation.
While acquiring as many picks as possible is important for a team that is in dire need of multiple impact guys, the potential that our biggest position of need could be filled by a guy many people view as the best player in the draft at the number 3 spot, coupled with a lack of potential trade partners, in my eyes, takes us out of the trade world come draft day.