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If they can't move up for the whoever the guy is they want then I think they'll pick at #12,... little chance of trading back down.

At least you pre-faced this one well! Don't buy it, but would like to buy some!

We'd have to give up more... unless the more was from next year's draft. We gave up FAR more for the Sammy trade-up from 9 to 4

Thankfully its now down to five!

Are you suggesting they should have lost on purpose? That's the most absurd proposition I can imagine. This nonsense was suggested related to the Bills early last season and its outrageous. No team could do that without igniting what could be a league destroying scandal. As I don't pay as much attention to the Jets these days, I'll answer this in the context of the calls for the Bills to "tank" last year, whatever that exactly means. As we re-signed Kyle Williams this week, look at some of his locker room speeches on the Bills site. A warrior to the core, in his 30s, playing his last season or two. How the hell do you face a guy like that if they "just lose another game or two" to get a better draft pick? How do you face a player who got hurt in a season or career ending injury that happened during one of the games or two that you're trying to lose. Its ridiculous and any coach or GM who tried to do that would be run out of the league... no player would play for him. Think before you post nonsense like this...

Anyone who follows Joe Buscaglia's weekly film study articles see that Hughes was the highest ranked player all year long. Our best player. Maddening when people just look at the top line tackle and sack numbers and then dismissively declare we should dump him. https://www.wkbw.com/sports/bills/2017-buffalo-bills-all-22-in-review-defensive-ends

Why bother bringing Kyle Williams back for that? And who wants to tell Shady that plan after he got a taste of the playoffs.

Like the discussion above... the market changed. Bridgewater injury just before the start of season made Vikings desperate and pay more for Bradford than anyone else would have... market may have changed in the other direction them now as OP is pointing out. They're probably better off waiting to see how Wentz progresses and who will get injured in pre-season before trading Foles. However, I think that a trade for Foles is an 'OR' proposition with continuing to trade up at this stage. Foles becomes your QB if you make the trade, not a bridge. Its also not a crazy idea. If the market's changed and he could be had now for a 2nd and we can spend all those pics on all our needs, that's certainly an alternative approach. If he's really blossomed into the guy we just saw in the SB, then that would be a no-brainer to me.

When all this is said and done there will be to be a thread that compares all the the 2018 moves with what we would have had in 2017 if we had stood pat and picked either Mahomes or Watson then. We also would've have had Tradaveous White and Dion Dawkins w/o the trade back.

If they trade back #12 and #22, they could bag 8 pics in the pics in the first 100...

With a better than average hit rate of 50%... this legendary draft was a coin flip. Three teams did all their homework and picked duds instead of Dan Marino....

Could be just lobbying to be re-signed.... but certainly peculiar given the frequency of his tweeting??

Wow... from the title I thought this was going to be about Trump and Russia....

I think if they want to go a route like that, I'd probably rather have Kyle Williams back for one more year if he's willing.

He's not terrible, he's just not a franchise altering QB

Lets be a bit careful about that. The Browns have shown thats not wonder-strategy necessarily either. In two successive seasons they traded out of Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson... yikes! I think its good to trade down at times, trade up a few to get someone or stand pat and make your picks. My preference would be not to trade up 10+ slots and overpay.

The one thing we didn't try is picking Mahomes or Watson last year

I didn't have an objective in looking for anything particularly related to QBs. What gave me the idea to do this was a different thread a couple days ago that was suggesting that a trade-up was worth it for a "future HOFer" regardless of position. The OP in that thread was suggesting G Quenton Nelson. I wanted to see if OL or any particular position warranted any thought like that. The point was to show that there's no such thing as knowing before a draft how might be a future HOFer. The analysis was a comparison of all positions, but just devolved into talk about QB for obvious reasons...

Absolutely nowhere near 26%. I did a quick and dirty assessment on that for the same timeframe and here are the results. Only 7% chance of getting HIT beyond top 15 pics. I rated the following pics in this group as HITS; Flacco, Bridgewater, Carr, Dalton, Cousins, Garrapolo, R. Wilson and Foles. Not sure if Foles belongs yet... QB Hit So-So Picked Rounds 2015 0 0 5 2014 3 1 13 1,2,5 2013 0 1 11 3 2012 3 0 8 3,4 2011 1 2 8 2,6 2010 0 1 13 3 2009 0 0 9 2008 1 1 12 1,7 2007 0 1 9 6 2006 0 0 8 2005 0 4 11 4,6,7 Total 8 11 107 7% 10% I'm definitely NOT saying not to pick a QB. I'm questioning making a big trade-up move, 10+ slots. We had Mahomes and Watson there for the taking last year and ironically to this thread, both were picked on big trade-ups that I wouldn't have done. Perhaps thats why I'm not a GM and just spewing my opinion in a forum on Saturday morning.... Agree!

There are some subjective adjustments in the assessment. If 5 of us did the analysis the numbers might move around a little bit, but we'd probably only re-classify 3-5 players out of 165 picked over the span that I looked at. I already gave the example of Clowney, who I subjectively classified as a HIT. Another example would be Sammy Watkins, who was traded before his rookie contract was up. I subjectively rated him as SO-SO, not a BUST.

I would imagine the HIT rate drops as you go further down the draft. That's certainly true. We all probably know the draft is some level of crapshoot, but this just attempts to quantify that. There's a lot of people want us to go big, up into the top 5 to get a QB and I'm just trying to put that into some perspective based on real results. Its not cherry picked analysis. I'm not picking/choosing what to include, I'm using the entire population of top 15 pics, so I'm not just selecting out BUSTs to highlight. Also, all of these players had similar volumes of exhaustive background analysis that we see every day leading up to draft day.

Its a matter of managing risk. I think moving up 3-5 picks to get a certainly player is OK, but moving up 10+ slots would be too expensive given the risk. That's not to say that every pick is the same risk. I don't have the time, but would love to see how this risk varies by team (or GM) to quantify how much skill there is drafting. The Cleveland Brown traded out of the Carson Wentz spot and then a year later out of the DeShaun Watson spot. Increasing their odds for high draft picks hasn't improved them yet and they still don't have their QB. Also the Bills traded down last year and passed on both Mahomes and Watson as well. I'm not saying don't take your shot and make your picks as best you can... my primary argument is not to make a big trade-up. I mainly defined HIT and then BUST was also easy to define. Players out of the league or cut/traded before their rookie contract was done. If you give up on a top 15 pick inside of a couple years, there's a problem. I started in 2015, so those players have been in the league at least 3 seasons. I made a few subjective adjustments. For example, I rated Jadeveon Clowney as a HIT even though he didn't fully fit the criteria I stated. Everyone who wasn't a HIT or BUST was put in the SO-SO bucket.

Every one of the players that I analyzed had the exact analysis that you're suggesting performed on them. None of these players were selected on a whim. They all had the most thorough analysis of player capabilities, team fit, psychological testing, face-to-face interviews, speaking to college coaches. What do you think would be blown off on these guys? And any of them who weren't picked in the top 15, would have been picked as "steals" in the next 15 and still would have been first rounders.

With all the talk of trading up I thought I would take a look at how well teams pick at the top half of the draft. I looked at just the top 15 pics over a decade 2005-2015 (11 years). I graded each pick as HIT / SO-SO / BUST. I defined HIT as someone who had their 5th year option picked up, was re-signed by team drafting them or signed a big FA contract once their rookie deal was up. For those still on their rookie contract they had to be full-time starters from year 1 and made the Pro-bowl. That's what you'd expect from a top 15 pick. Here are the results by position: Position Hit So-so Bust QB 26% 32% 42% RB 31% 38% 31% WR 39% 17% 44% OL 38% 38% 24% DL 43% 26% 31% LB 57% 17% 26% DB 33% 38% 29% Offense 34% 32% 34% Defense 44% 27% 29% Total 39% 29% 32% Other than at LB the drafting success of the entire league scouting system for the top 15 picks of the draft is less than a coin flip. These should be the most sure-fire perennial Pro Bowlers. If the league's collective wisdom can't be above 50% with these pics, why would you ever trade up? Much less, for a QB, which is the worst performing position. I further looked at QBs in just the top 5 in the same period. The HIT rate "rises" to 38%,... certainly uninspiring. With at least 4 QBs projected in the top 15 pics, we should expect that at least 2 of them will be BUSTs.

I'm generally against big trade-ups... a few slots, OK, but moving 10+ slots up is too expensive. The idea that anyone is a "future HOFer"... maybe, maybe not. I don't watch college football, so don't know any of these players, just consume lots media on players leading up to draft. So many can't miss players busted out at every position over the years that nobody should be so arrogant as to declare anyone a "future HOFer"... you name the position and we can start crowd-sourcing "can't miss" busts. Just on OL picked in the top 6 picks and clearly considered perennial pro-bowlers for a decade leading up to the draft; Tony Mandarich (#2), Greg Robinson (#2), Luke Joeckel (#2), Jonathan Cooper (#6), Jason Smith (#1), Andre Smith (#2), Robert Gallery (#2), Leonard Davis (#2)... and oh yeah... Mike Williams (#4)