It's almost always a good year to trade down and that is the case in the 2016 NFL Draft for the Kansas City Chiefs. Because Roger Goodell stole the Chiefs third round pick, KC has just two picks in the top 100 with their first and second round picks.
This is the year the Chiefs want more mid-round picks rather than trading up. The MMQB's Peter King conducted a draft panel of 10 team decision makers and highlighted some of their comments here:
- "Twenty-five to 55 is the same player, to me."
- "Eleven to 40 is the same guy."
- "To us, 18 to 48 you can get the same player."
- "Load me up with twos and threes in this draft. That's where I'd want a lot of picks."
- "It's the kind of draft where the 50th player on some team's board will be the 17th player on another team, and the 17th player on the first team could be the 50th on that other team."
To me this screams that the Chiefs should absolutely trade down. I would LOVE to see KC move back and pick up an extra second and a third or a couple of seconds. That would be ideal and it would be the best way to make the Chiefs a better team. The problem? Many others are looking at the draft the same way and will want to trade down too.
The Rams (43 and 45) and Patriots (60 and 61) each have two second round picks. Another team higher in the second could package their second and a third or fourth to move up. This would all depend on a team wanting a player bad enough and not believing that player will fall to them. Which players at the end of the first are worth an extra draft pick to trade up? That's a big question we hope to find out on draft weekend.