Quote: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.

 

 

Ah yes, Washington.  I remember now.  I was gravitating to Dallas' pick before that where they were taking forever to select and the speculation was that they were on the phone with someone.  Probably us.  Maybe that was even confirmed that it was us?   I guess we can count our blessings a little that we didn't give up even more to move up the one extra spot.  Not that it matters now with the complete gutting of the roster last year.

 

I'm not sure JohnnyJaguar's original post that I responded to is defensible.  He said that if someone is willing to move up to your spot for a guy, that the guy is likely worth it and that you shouldn't do the trade.  As if you should just throw your own scouting out the window because someone wants your spot.  You've given great examples above of it working out for the team that trades up, but you're actually proving my point.  Teams have differing grades on players.  Scouting is inexact.  To give more credibility to someone else's opinion of a guy than your own on draft day after you've supposedly done your due diligence is ludicrous.  You can say you want Manziel or Bridgewater or whoever because you believe they grade out higher than the other options or their value as a player is greater than what's being offered in trade and you might even be right.  However, to say you should take one of these QBs BECAUSE someone is willing to trade up to get them is laughable. 

---