Trade fest that was draft … According to an unofficial count by GBN Associate Editor Pigskin Paul Guillemette, 123 of the 256 picks at the 2018 draft were traded at least once. And that doesn’t count what appeared to be a fairly substantial number of picks that were moved more than once. In the end, though, only four of those deals involved 2019 picks and only one of those involved a first round pick in next year’s draft. Green Bay picked up New Orleans’ #1 next year when the Saints moved up in this year’s first round to select Texas-San Antonio DE Marcus Davenport. Meanwhile, New England added a couple of second day picks in the 2019 draft when they acquired a #2 from Chicago and a #3 from Detroit in separate deals this weekend. The 3rd rounder New England received from Detroit gets them back in next year’s 3rd round as the Patriots had shipped their original selection an the round to Cleveland for DT Danny Shelton earlier this year. For the record, the other 2019 pick that changed hands this weekend came when Philadelphia acquired Baltimore’s #2 next year in the deal in which the Eagles dealt the Ravens the final pick in this year’s opening round where they selected Louisville QB Lamar Jackson. Of course, there will be more trades between today and April 2019, but right now next year’s draft looks to have more of a more egalitarian feel to it than a lot of recent drafts. Based on our unofficial count of future traded picks, Green Bay is currently the only team with an extra first rounder next year. However, if as expected, both the Packers and Saints are pretty good teams next fall, neither of Green Bay’s #1 picks could be all that early in next year’s opening round. At the same time, New England, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Philadelphia each have extra second rounders, while Cleveland has a second pick in the third round. However, the truth is that currently no team in the league has more than one extra top 100 pick; in fact, by our unofficial count no team in the league currently has more than 7 picks in the first 6 rounds.
