Trying to make sense of the 2016 draft has been a little like herding cats. There really hasn’t been much information leaking out of war rooms around the NFL and much of has leaked out hasn’t made a whole lot of sense. Earlier today, for example, there was a report over at NFL.com that indicated that Cleveland has “entered the exploratory stages” of trying to trade the #2 pick in this month’s draft. According to NFL Media analyst Lance Zierlein, an unnamed NFL executive says the Browns are not totally enamored with any of the players that will be available at that spot and would be willing to part with it in order to collect more draft picks and select a QB with a later pick. In fact, given that the only players the Browns have really been looking at are QBs, principally Carson Wentz of North Dakota State or Cal’s Jared Goff, that really translates to mean that the Browns aren’t totally enamored with the top QBs.
Not sure we are buying it though. First, this is the season and smoke and mirrors and an unnamed NFL team exec could in fact be from any team with an agenda of there. Indeed, while even Wentz is not in the Andrew Luck category of prospect, he’s still a very good young QB with a strong arm, better than average athleticism and excellent intangibles and the potential to be a major upgrade at the position for the Browns. The report regarding the Browns comes just a day after a report circulated that the Titans had at least one ‘solid’ offer on the table for the 1st pick overall. And the only offer the Titans are likely to have received would be from a team looking to jump ahead of Cleveland to get Wentz. But the only teams that would appear to be genuinely interested in moving up to get Wentz would be San Francisco and/or Philadelphia. However, those teams sit in the 7th and 8th slots in the first round and its just hard to believe that either would be willing to give up a package of 4-5 first and second-day picks to move that far, plus perhaps other considerations to move up that far.
What we may be seeing here is a bit of a kiboukie dance between Tennessee and Cleveland themselves. In a perfect world, what the Titans would really like to do is entice the Browns to flip the 1st and 2nd picks to ensure getting Wentz while Tennessee would still get the guy they were going to take at #1. However, for the Browns to bite, they have to be genuinely worried that somebody else was indeed prepared to leapfrog them so it wouldn’t hurt to pretend that they don’t want the guy in the first place. Stay tuned.
