With today’s draft picks-only trade between the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints, are the Saints now in a position to trade up further with the Giants? That ‘possibility’ moved the meter toward the ‘probability’ range. Here’s how…
The Eagles traded picks 16 and 19 overall plus a sixth-round pick to the Saints in exchange for pick #18, a third-round pick, a seventh-round pick plus a 2023 first-round pick, and a 2024 second-round pick. Including their #15 pick, the Eagles had three first-round picks this year before this trade. Now, they still have two but added a potentially huge first-rounder in 2023. So, exchanging three picks for six picks is a win for the Eagles.
For the Saints, this trade gives them two first-round picks fairly high up in the draft. But is this just an intermediate stop? Would they be positioning themselves to trade up ahead of Carolina in a battle to get a starting quarterback? The Panthers are at pick #6. Who holds the #5 pick? The Giants…who Joe Schoen has stated want to move one of their top 10 picks. Both the Panthers and the Saints are believed to be in the market for new QBs. The Panthers have Sam Darnold, and the Saints have Jameis Winston. Both of these QBs have mixed results and have suffered injuries that limited their playing time. Being division rivals, grabbing the best QB of a limited draft group suddenly gives a lot of credence to a potential trade.
Both Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll have spoken of this draft as wanting to take the best player available at whatever position they are drafting. Very few mentions so far of them discussing two top-10 picks. It has been expressing a desire to take an early pick, then one whenever. While the Saints have already given up their 2023 first-round pick, would the Giants hesitate to take picks 16 and 19 for pick 5? It would clearly benefit the Giants to get a second first-rounder in 2023 as a hedge on their own QB situation. But can you really pass on three 2022 first-round picks which lead to three starters on a team that needs so many quality players?
The Eagles have done much to anger the Giants fans over the recent past. Game #16 in 2020 went down as the dive of all dives by the Eagles against the Washington Football Team which put the WFT into the playoffs just ahead of the Giants. Then in last year’s draft, the trade between the Eagles and the Cowboys put the Eagles just ahead of the Giants to grab coveted Alabama WR DeVonta Smith. No, the Eagles don’t do favors for the Giants and work to make Giants fans miserable.
But did they give the Giants the potential trade-down partner GM Joe Schoen is looking for? We’ll know in less than four weeks.
