Grant Paulsen Tweeted just before 6 p.m. Thursday that ‘today I learned a lot of Commanders fans want to trade back from No. 2.”
That came from the phone lines and the social media after GP and Danny were discussing the notion, and gave their one word on the idea.
“Risky,” was Danny’s word. “Any move you make or don't make is a bet; you're betting that the quarterback that you want is available later, or that guy is going to be just as good as this group that's perceived to be better by head and shoulders by some significant measure over the next tier down. Be that McCarthy, Nix, Penix, whomever, it’s a risky move to not just stay put and make it easy on yourself. You need a quarterback, you have a high draft pick, you take a quarterback.”
Maybe you get ‘that Robert Griffin Godfather offer to move back,’ but…
“You need to end up with a young signal caller, and a whole bunch of draft picks obviously to boot, and that's great,” Danny said. “But to me, it is a risky move. The safest simplest and easiest move is to stay put and take a QB. In general, I am a huge advocate – the year they drafted Chase Young, to me, it was either quarterback or trade back, and nobody wanted to hear it. I love trading back, unless you don't have a quarterback, in which case you jump at the opportunity to take the second prize in this draft.”
That’s of course Jayden Daniels for Danny, and it’s Drake Maye for Grant, but if GP had one word about that trade down? It’s two, because he needs an adjective to amplify the actual word.
“We’ve done the thing for years where we go through the draft simulators and look at our options, and I am Mr. Trade Back – there’s almost never a bad time to do it – but my answer is trading down would be a gigantic mistake,” Grant said. “Now, it's on the table for a few reasons, notably, because of the depth of this QB class; if you trade back one spot to three, you could still get Daniels or Maye, if they're even on your board, and if you traded back a little further to six or eight, or maybe even the low teens, then you miss out on the big three, but you could overdraft slightly but still get a guy there.”
That’s not a lock though, and as Danny says it’s a risk to try it, Grant thinks it’s that mistake either way.
“I think it'd be a huge mistake because I think the drop off from the Top 3 and everybody else is sizable,” GP said. “You might think that Caleb Williams to Maye and Daniels is huge, or maybe you're a big fan of one of those other two guys and you think that the gap between one and two is big and then two and three is huge. But, what I think is pretty irrefutable going into this process, and there's a lot we don't know and we're gonna end up being wrong on in various fashions, is it looks like the Big 3 separated by a Grand Canyon-sized drop off, and then the debate is what's the rest of the order look like?”
It’s always subjective based on team philosophy, even with good teams – see also the Ravens drafting a tight end 25th in 2018, then moving back up seven spots later because Lamar Jackson was still there and the Eagles prioritized adding more assets than anyone they liked at 32 (which, given where they are now, is an interesting case study in and of itself).
“Some of the draft experts expect JJ McCarthy first there, to go in the Top 10 or 12, but you’re not going to be picking in the Top 2 or 3 again, ideally, because it’s very hard to be bad enough to pick this high,” GP said. “They've done it twice recently because they were run pretty horrifically and been an abysmal organization, but if Adam Peters is as good as we think he is, if the Harris ownership group is as much as an upgrade from Dan Snyder as we're expecting, if this coaching staff is solid, then you’re not going 3-14 this season and picking second again. So, you're gonna be trying to find a quarterback then next year and into the future, in probably worse quarterback drafts, while picking lower – or, whatever you're recouping here, you're packaging a bunch of stuff to go up.”
Grant doesn’t think that any QB next year, or even in 2026, is as good a prospect as Williams, Daniels, or Maye, so if you kick the can down the road, you’re picking up a dented can.
“I think it would be a huge mistake. I think you've got to pick in the Top 3 as a floor, and if you trade back, one spot is about as far as I would go,” GP said. “I’m not a fan of trading up, either, so I think you stay at No. 2 and take whoever you like best among the two remaining elite prospects in this class.”
“Again, there's a big part of me that doesn’t just do the blindly trust the boss bit; I have more confidence in Peters certainly than I did in the previous regime, but there better be a smart plan,” Danny replied. “Like, you better know that if you're moving back to eight, and you've got a good view of somebody else that you think he's every bit as good as these top guys and just you wait and see and you pick up extra picks, that’s a win. That’s great.
But it’s risky to me. You better be right.”
The guys understand that a trade back a few spots would be an unbelievable haul, referencing PFF’s outlook where a trade back to No. 8 would get them Atlanta’s second and third and a first-rounder in 2025 – but can you afford to do that and hope the guy you have pegged fourth, or even fifth, is there?
“So then at No. 8 you get a wide receiver, at 36 you take an edge, you’re on the clock at 40 and you take a starting tackle, and then at 43, maybe you go with whichever quarterback fell there, whoever is maybe like the eighth best QB in the country or something,” Grant said. “At that point you're picking seven times in the Top 101, a really insane number of picks – but who's your quarterback, and how good are they, and did you get that position right?”
