(03-18-2021, 11:26 PM)TheDuke007 Wrote:

(03-14-2021, 08:54 PM)Bullseye Wrote: If you would only use a 4th round pick or later, chances are you aren't looking to move up very far. Fortunately, that may be all it takes to get the player you want.

As for moving down, I suppose it would depend of the success of free agency and how deep they think the draft is.

Given Baalke's history, and Meyer's consulting with Jimmy Johnson and his friendship with Belichick, I wouldn't be surprised to see them trade down.  Would I expect is?  No.  Trades are far easier to make on a message board than in real life.  But Baalke seems inclined to move up and down the board, and he has the picks and the needs to do so.

I was speaking in terms of what I would do and not necessarily what I think Meyer/Baalke would do.  I realize trading late round picks won't change your position much.  My goal wouldn't be to change to a significantly different location of the draft.  It would be to leapfrog teams ahead me if I saw a player dropping in the draft that I considered to be a steal at a position of need and I thought one of those teams ahead of me would take him.

I wrote that message prior to free agency.  I opposed trading down at the time unless there was a significant disconnect between need and value.  After free agency, I'm even less inclined to trade down.  While I was disappointed we didn't get more high end quality players in free agency, we did acquire quantity.  I believe the count is currently 12 and we're not necessarily done.  We need quality.  In fact, I'm even questioning my prior position regarding trading up.  Maybe we should rethink it and be more aggressive and trade up in order to get some high end players.  After free agency, the team actually has pretty good depth in most areas.  

This is just pure speculation, but I wonder if Meyer/Baalke acquired so much depth in free agency because it is their plan to trade up on draft day.

I was wondering the same thing.

Thing is, we needed the 3-4 D Linemen.  We needed the numbers.  There was also some talk by some draft observers that this year's crop of rookie DTs isn't particularly strong.  So we may not have gotten any true dominators, but we have a nice rotation of solid guys.  We also needed the speed in the secondary, so I can't say signing the numbers was specifically designed to facilitate a trade up.

Is an increased ability to trade up a byproduct of it? 

Possibly, if the numbers truly represent quality depth and role players.

But if it is part of a specific strategy to trade up, I wonder what positions will be targeted.

Two obvious holes are TE and FS.  I could imagine them being high on Pitts.  But Pitts is such an unusual talent, the traditional positional bias that works against TE may not have as much effect on him, so it may not push him out of the top ten.  As The OLine Matters pointed out, the Reiff signing could translate into the Bengals drafting Pitts.  I can't see us trading up far enough to land Pitts, unless somehow he falls.  I like Friermuth, but he's certainly not worth a top ten pick, and it may not be necessary to move up for him at all.  There's no FS that warrants a top ten pick, or for that matter a trade up.

It goes back to my question about whether Meyer's description of the LT class applies only to the free agents.  It would make sense for the team to trade up if they are targeting guys like Slater or Darrisaw.  It shouldn't be cost prohibitive to move up high enough to land one of them, especially since the Bengals just signed Riley Reiff and could push Slater or Darrisaw down a little.  From a financial perspective, if Robinson signs the one year franchise tender, it'll be expensive for this year, but if he doesn't sign a multi year deal, Cam plus a rookie on his rookie deal wouldn't be cost prohibitive, and drafting a T would, if nothing else, improve the depth at the position, because as much as we aren't crazy about the starters, we have ZERO behind them.

#827

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