Quote:For your thought above to be grounded in reality, we'd have to assume that all scouting departments are equal and that a player's projected value is 100% accurate.  To carry it further, why would anyone ever trade picks if your above statement is true?  Oh if only you could have been the GM for Baltimore when we were trying to go up to get Harvey or if you could have been the GM of Dallas a few years ago when we were trying to go up to get Gabbert.  You would have told us "no way" and instead taken those players for yourself, right? 

1.  We traded with Washington to get Gabbert, not Dallas.

 

2.  The decision to trade down should take the available talent into consideration.    Do you think New England would rather have Jerry Rice, or the two picks they got in trade from San Francisco?  Do you think Pittsburgh preferred Eric Green and the 4th round pick they got from Dallas in 1990 for Emmitt Smith?  The Colts wound up trading away Elway when he refused to play for them.  They even wound up with extra picks and good players.  Do you think they wanted the extra players, or Elway?  The night before the draft, Jimmy Johnson and Miami traded down in the 1998 draft from pick 19-29 and got extra picks from the Packers, missing out on Randy Moss, who went 21st overall to the Vikings.

 

Sometimes the extra picks are not worth what you give up when star caliber talent is on the board.

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