If you've been thinking about the 2023 NFL draft recently, you might have noticed something that doesn't often happen in December. Three of the draft's current top five picks already have been traded away. The Broncos, Rams and Saints would be picking in the top five after disappointing seasons, but their incredibly valuable selections instead will be made by the Seahawks, Lions and Eagles.
In each case, these teams sent future first-round picks to plug holes on their existing rosters. Denver and Los Angeles acquired veteran quarterbacks, while New Orleans needed to draft both a wide receiver and a left tackle in the 2022 class. Those three teams didn't expect to send a top-five pick to their opponents, but with four weeks in the NFL season remaining, that nightmare is about to become reality.
Every team loves getting something for future draft picks when deals go down. In many cases, the deals don't look quite as impressive years later. For every Jalen Ramsey deal, there's a Khalil Mack, Jamal Adams or Jay Cutler trade, where a team sends two first-rounders, pays out a big contract and doesn't get the player it was hoping to add while missing out on valuable, cost-controlled talent in the draft.
Let's run through the three trades that have shaken up the top of next April's draft. What were those teams thinking at the time? Were they too confident? Would they make these deals again? What will the teams nabbing these valuable picks do in April? And which of these three is deepest in the mire of mediocrity?
Jump to a section:
DEN to SEA | LAR to DET | NO to PHI
Which team is in the worst shape?
No. 2 pick: Broncos traded to Seahawks
The trade: Denver sent first-round picks in 2022 and 2023, second-round picks in 2022 and 2023, a fifth-round selection in 2022 and a trio of players -- tight end Noah Fant, defensive tackle Shelby Harris and quarterback Drew Lock to Seattle. In exchange, the Broncos received quarterback Russell Wilson and a 2022 fourth-round pick.
The early returns: The Seahawks used the 2022 first-round pick from Denver on left tackle Charles Cross, who has been excellent as a rookie at a major position of need. The second-rounder went toward edge rusher Boye Mafe, who has two sacks on 329 defensive snaps. Seattle traded the fourth-round pick to the Chiefs for fifth- and seventh-round selections, which were used on linebacker Tyreke Smith and wideout Dareke Young. Smith is on injured reserve, while Young has played mostly on special teams.
The Broncos took defensive end Eyioma Uwazurike with the fourth-round selection from Seattle. He has played just 25 snaps on defense this season. As for Wilson, well, you know how that has gone.
Would the Seahawks make this trade again? LOL.
What were the Broncos thinking? They thought they were following in the Rams' footsteps and landing a championship-caliber quarterback. Wilson is 34, and there's some evidence he has become less mobile over the past two seasons, but the Broncos could have reasonably expected to land at least two years of him maintaining his prior level of play.
What has gone wrong for Denver? Owing to some combination of Wilson declining, injuries throughout the offense and an overmatched coaching staff, neither he nor the team lived up to expectations. I wrote about this at length two weeks ago and won't belabor the point here.
On top of that, the Broncos have been unlucky. At 3-10, they have the point differential of a 5.8-win team. They've gone 3-8 in one-score games, including an 0-3 mark in overtime. They've been laid up by injuries on both sides of the ball, with the most recent one coming when Wilson was knocked out of Sunday's game against the Chiefs in the fourth quarter. Denver's defense has been legitimately excellent under coordinator Ejiro Evero, but it hasn't been enough to carry Wilson and the offense over the line late in games.
Should the Broncos have seen this coming? I don't think so. As I wrote about earlier this year, Wilson played very well after recovering from his finger injury in 2021. Health had also not been an issue; he had never missed a start before suffering what appeared to be a freak injury last season. Wilson suffered a partially torn hamstring and a concussion this season, the latter coming while scrambling for a critical first down in Week 14.
All that is on the field. If you want to argue the Broncos shouldn't have invested in Wilson because of how he fit within the locker room, his attitude toward offensive football or his public persona, well, you deserve a pat on the back. Wilson has as a try-hard whose response to any criticism or obstacle is to try harder. The legacy of Wilson's first season in Denver will be the injured quarterback doing high knees in the aisles of the team's plane to London while his teammates slept. Stuff like that plays up as competitiveness from a gamer when a team is winning. When it's losing, it reads as hapless comedy.
How did the Seahawks replace Wilson? At the time, it appeared they were acquiring Lock to be their new starting quarterback, given that he was the only experienced passer on their roster. Two months later, they brought back unrestricted free agent Geno Smith and gave him a chance to win the job from Lock in camp.
Smith has played brilliantly this season, and the Seahawks deserve credit for giving him an opportunity. Given that the organization reportedly was only willing to negotiate with the Broncos because it wanted Lock to replace Wilson, though, landing on Smith is less of a master plan than it might seem with hindsight. Fant and Harris have been steady contributors to the roster, but Lock, who is in the final year of his rookie contract, hasn't played a single offensive snap.
What are the lessons to be learned from this deal? Even superstar quarterbacks don't guarantee success, and it's never a guarantee the picks traded away will land in the bottom of the first round. Wilson isn't the only example of this. Remember that the Texans got a full season from Deshaun Watson in 2020 and still ended up finishing 4-12. As a result, they sent the No. 3 overall pick to the Dolphins, which eventually netted Miami another haul of picks (and players) from the 49ers.
The Texans could have kicked off their own rebuild with those selections, but after growing desperate at left tackle in the days before the 2019 season began, they sent two first-round picks to the Dolphins in a deal for Laremy Tunsil. This year, the Broncos might have found a solution by taking a look at and signing Smith, but after growing impatient from years with Teddy Bridgewater, Case Keenum, and others under center, they sacrificed the future to try to win now.
This also should be an argument against teams with no track record of significant success going all-in for one player. It was one thing when a Rams team that had made perennial trips to the playoffs traded for Matthew Stafford, but the Broncos hadn't posted a winning season in five seasons before acquiring Wilson.
If Denver had gotten the version of Wilson it expected and combined him with its great 2022 defense, it would be a Super Bowl contender. Trading away four premium picks, three players and handing Wilson a massive new contract prices the franchise in as being absolutely, positively certain it would get that version of Wilson this season. That sort of confidence -- while understandable given Wilson's track record -- looks to have been too robust.
What will the Seahawks do with their pick? The thinking for the Seahawks likely starts with their feelings about Smith, who has struggled with turnovers during the past month after a blistering-hot start to the season. He turned the ball over just five times during Seattle's first nine games of the season, but he has coughed up the ball seven times during the 1-3 stretch that has followed.
Smith could be a candidate for the franchise tag, which would net the longtime backup a cool $31.5 million if the projections from Over The Cap prove accurate. The Seahawks could try to ink him to a short-term extension similar to the one signed by Keenum with the Broncos after his stunning 2017 season with the Vikings. After adjusting for the rise in the salary cap, Smith would be looking at something in the ballpark of two years and $50 million.
Unless the Seahawks are willing to commit three years of guaranteed money to keep Smith around as their starter, they could very easily justify using their top-three pick on a quarterback of the future, who could sit behind Smith for some or all of 2023. Otherwise, given the issues they have up front, general manager John Schneider could use this pick on edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. (Alabama) or defensive tackle Jalen Carter (Georgia). The Seahawks have their own first-rounder -- ESPN's FPI projects it to land at No. 19 -- and could choose to take a quarterback later in Round 1.
The other alternative would be to target one of the teams desperate for a young quarterback and trade down for a haul. The Dolphins got three first-round picks from the 49ers when San Francisco moved up from No. 12 to No. 3 to grab Trey Lance in 2021; the price would probably be similar if Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer called up his old employers to move up from the No. 12 spot in the draft, where Carolina is projected to pick.
No. 4 pick: Rams traded to Lions
The trade: Los Angeles sent its 2021 third-round pick, first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 and the unwanted contract of quarterback Jared Goff to Detroit, which sent back longtime franchise signal-caller Matthew Stafford.
The early returns: The Lions used the third-round pick on cornerback Ifeatu Melifonwu, who has since converted to safety for a Detroit defense that sorely needs help in the secondary. Melifonwu has played just six defensive snaps this season.
After the Rams won the Super Bowl and sent the Lions the final pick in the first round of the 2022 draft, Detroit packaged that selection to move up for speedy wideout Jameson Williams at No. 12 overall. Williams has missed most of his rookie season while recovering from a torn ACL, but he announced his return to the lineup last week by turning his first NFL catch into a 41-yard touchdown.
Goff, acquired at the absolute bottom of his value, is playing the best football of his Lions career. Coach Dan Campbell seemed close to benching him at times last season, but the streaky Goff has been better. His 61.2 QBR is the sixth-best mark in football and would represent his second-best season, coming in just behind his Pro Bowl campaign in 2018. Making just over $26 million this season, Goff has been a plus for Detroit
Would the Rams make this trade again? Of course. Flags fly forever. If you asked any NFL team whether it would have made this trade -- knowing both that it would win a Super Bowl and end up sending a top-five pick away the following season -- all 32 would do it without blinking an eye. It's too difficult to win one Super Bowl to treat any deal that directly led to a title as a bad decision.
If anything, it's a fun thought exercise to try to identify how many NFL players wouldn't be traded for a guaranteed Super Bowl victory. The Chiefs wouldn't trade Patrick Mahomes for one Super Bowl when he gives them a chance of winning a handful over the next 15 seasons. The Bills probably would not make that trade with Josh Allen, even if that city and franchise are desperate to finally win the big game. The Bengals probably wouldn't do it with Joe Burrow.
Otherwise? Everybody's on the move. The Jaguars would deal Trevor Lawrence. The Eagles would ship out Jalen Hurts. The chances of winning multiple Super Bowls with anybody short of a true franchise quarterback in their mid-20s just aren't high enough to justify not making a deal where you know you win a Super Bowl. The Rams didn't know they would win a championship when they made the Stafford deal, but now that they did, they wouldn't go back and change their minds.
What were the Rams thinking? Coach Sean McVay thought his offense was capped with Goff as its signal-caller. After years of insisting Goff wasn't a system quarterback or a product of one of the league's best offensive infrastructures, McVay seemed to sour on him midway through the 2020 season. When the Rams had a chance to pounce after the offseason, they sent two first-rounders to beat the 49ers to the punch and acquire Stafford from the Lions.
For the first half of Stafford's first season with the Rams, McVay looked prescient. Los Angeles spread out teams in empty formations, let Stafford pick his matchup and unlocked a career season out of Cooper Kupp. Over the first eight games of last season, Stafford led the league with an 82.0 QBR, nearly seven points better than that of second-placed Tom Brady. He averaged more than 9 yards per attempt and threw 22 touchdown passes against just four picks.
Since then? Stafford's 53.2 QBR ranks 19th in the league, just behind Daniel Jones. He has thrown 21 interceptions in 19 games and is back averaging 7.1 yards per attempt, which is right at the league average. The Rams have been forced to get away from those empty looks, and before suffering a series of injuries that appear to have ended his season, the same Stafford who led the league in QBR against man coverage last season was posting one of the worst marks in 2022.
Stafford won a Super Bowl, and his play on the game's final drive played a key role in getting them there. He also struggled mightily at times during the second half of the campaign, turned the ball over twice in the Super Bowl and was lucky to get away with bad throws in both the divisional round and conference title game.
The arm punt from Stafford that 49ers safety Jaquiski Tartt dropped in the latter contest wouldn't have sealed the game for San Francisco, but it came on a fourth-quarter drive, which eventually produced the tying field goal. If that interception led to a 49ers victory, the Stafford trade would have looked like a disaster today and the quintessential example of how the Rams got carried away with their own aggressiveness. Instead, it led them to a title. The margins between unquestioned success and abysmal failure in the NFL are thinner than they might seem.
What has gone wrong for Los Angeles? After years of trading away first-round picks and acquiring core players, the Rams have been stretched too thin. The retirement of Andrew Whitworth cost them a key offensive lineman, and replacement Joe Noteboom was one of several Rams linemen to go down injured. Stafford, backup John Wolford and starting wideouts Kupp and Allen Robinson have also battled injuries.
On the defensive side, the Rams failed to replace Von Miller after losing him in free agency to the Bills and struggled to formulate a pass rush alongside superstar Aaron Donald -- who is now also injured. Cornerback Jalen Ramsey is having a disappointing season by his standards; he has been in coverage for five touchdown catches so far, matching his combined total allowed between 2020 and 2021.
I'm not sure anything could have saved the Rams, given their injuries, but this offseason looks like one general manager Les Snead & Co. will regret. They signed Stafford to a significant extension, missed out on Miller and instead gave out a three-year, $46.5 million contract to Robinson, who was putting up less-than-impressive numbers in his debut campaign before suffering a season-ending foot injury.
Should the Rams have seen this coming? Stafford is battling a series of injuries, including an elbow injury that started bothering him last season, a concussion and, most recently, a spinal cord contusion. The injury is expected to keep Stafford out for the remainder of the season and raises questions about his future. The Rams at least hinted they're concerned about what happens next for Stafford when they made a waiver claim on Baker Mayfield, who led the team to an upset victory over the Raiders in his debut.
The Rams couldn't have anticipated Stafford's career would be in question by the end of his second season with the team, and it would be unrealistic to criticize them for giving him an extension after Stafford won a Super Bowl, even given the elbow issues. We can look back with hindsight and say they wouldn't make the same choice with his extension, but nobody faulted them for signing Stafford earlier this offseason. If anything, his deal was more team friendly than most would have expected.
In contrast to Wilson, though, the Rams probably could have suspected they were unlikely to get a series of healthy seasons from Stafford. He fractured his back in 2019 and was out for the second half of the season. He has missed time because of a dislocated shoulder and a dislocated patella and played through countless rib and finger injuries. Nobody doubts his toughness, but he had a much more significant injury résumé than Wilson.
How did the Lions replace Stafford? Goff has started 27 of 30 games over the past two seasons. Since the second half of the 2021 campaign, he ranks seventh in QBR, 12 spots ahead of Stafford. He has been healthier and would expect to be healthier from this point forward. With the Rams paying off the early bonuses on his deal and signing Stafford to a four-year, $160 million extension, Goff is also now on a friendlier deal than his counterpart.
What are the lessons to be learned from this deal? Even if a team has had success trading first-round picks for players in the past and has a core of superstars, it can't count on everything continuing to go right. The Rams believe late first-round picks are overvalued, and they've repeatedly traded future first-rounders for young stars and lived to tell the tale.
After McVay arrived in 2017, the Rams had been in line to pick 23rd, 31st, 20th, 25th and 32nd in Round 1, instead choosing to trade all those picks away in deals for Brandin Cooks, Ramsey and Stafford. The combo of McVay, Donald and a host of playmakers on offense had hinted that the floor in Los Angeles with those guys around was nine wins. If the worst-case scenario was trading a couple of picks in the 16-to-20 range for Stafford, the Rams were willing to take that risk.
Of course, as the Broncos learned with Wilson and the Texans learned with Deshaun Watson, even having a franchise quarterback doesn't guarantee years of success. Even the Rams might have valued having a top-five pick, because it would have been great trade bait for a young star. With the Lombardi Trophy in their building, however, the Rams will cope.
The other lesson might be to stay level-headed in player evaluations. Goff benefited from an incredible scheme and plenty of open receivers during his first few seasons with McVay and couldn't do much when the Patriots shut down his running game in Super Bowl LIII. The Rams still gave Goff a four-year, $134 million extension during the subsequent offseason, the first window in which he was eligible for a new deal.
Two years later, having seen the same concerns many outsiders saw about Goff's inability to excel out of structure or when the offense wasn't giving him easy solutions, McVay changed his mind and dealt away his quarterback in what amounted to a salary dump. Goff wasn't as good as the Rams suggested in 2018 and isn't as bad as the organization believed at the end of 2020.
What will the Lions do with their pick? Goff is 28 and will have two years and $52.3 million remaining on his deal after this season. The Lions are probably a season away from making a meaningful decision about whether they want to be in the Goff business for another long-term contract. This top-five pick will likely be their clearest path toward landing a franchise quarterback on a rookie deal.
Does Detroit general manager Brad Holmes see that guy in this year's draft? If so, the Lions will probably take him with the pick from the Rams and move on from Goff before 2024. There will be a reasonable trade market for Goff this offseason if he keeps up his current level of play, given that as many as 12 teams could be shopping for new starting quarterbacks. I don't think he would net a first-round pick, but a second-round pick could be realistic.
If not, the Lions probably will move forward with Goff and use this pick on a player to help them now. We've seen Detroit build through the lines with consecutive first-round selections in Penei Sewell and Aidan Hutchinson, and with four defensive linemen in the top 12 on Mel Kiper Jr.'s Big Board, I would suspect the Lions go back there if they don't draft a quarterback. An edge-rushing duo of Will Anderson Jr. and Hutchinson might be enough to kick the Detroit defense into gear.
No. 5 pick: Saints traded to Eagles
The trade: New Orleans sent first-, third- and seventh-round selections in 2022, a first-round pick in 2023 and a second-round selection in 2024 to the Eagles. In return, Philadelphia sent a pair of first-rounders in 2022 and a 2022 sixth-round selection to the Saints.
It's a little confusing, so think of it this way. The Saints swapped pick Nos. 18, 101 and 237 for Nos. 16, 19 and 194 in the 2022 draft. To move up three times, they had to send a first-round pick in 2023 and a second-rounder in 2024.
The early returns: Both these teams kept making moves after their swap. The Saints moved up again from No. 16 to 11, sending third- and fourth-round picks to the Commanders in the process. They eventually drafted Chris Olave, who has been a star amid an otherwise dreary Saints campaign. He ranks ninth in yards per route run (2.54) despite playing with quarterbacks Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton.
The Saints used the other first-round pick on offensive tackle Trevor Penning, who tore a ligament in his toe during training camp and spent most of the season on injured reserve. Penning made his regular-season debut in Week 12, but he has played just 16 snaps in a reserve role. Sixth-round pick Jordan Jackson was cut at the end of camp and landed on the practice squad.
Meanwhile, the Eagles found their own star wide receiver by trading pick Nos. 18 and 101 to the Titans for A.J. Brown. Brown has been one of the few wide receivers in the league better than Olave. Philadelphia general manager Howie Roseman used the seventh-round pick to move up a few spots in the sixth round to nab 223-pound edge rusher Kyron Johnson, who has been a special-teamer in his debut season.
Would the Saints make this trade again? They likely would want to get Olave, but they would probably have preferred just moving up from No. 18 to 11, which would have cost much less than their pair of moves. It's unfair to render a verdict about Penning, but even if he turns out to be a franchise left tackle, the Saints desperately need that top-five pick in 2023. They could just as easily have used that selection to draft an offensive tackle, such as Peter Skoronski (Northwestern) or Paris Johnson Jr. (Ohio State), or, more realistically, taken their future quarterback next year.
What were the Saints thinking? After years of operating in win-now mode during the Drew Brees and Sean Payton era, they were stuck in a trap of their own doing. Financial imprudence and kicking the salary cap can down the road left the 2022 team vulnerable. New Orleans had no choice but to undergo another series of restructures to be cap compliant, pushing a series of veteran contracts into the future but limiting their flexibility to fill holes on the roster.
Without a quarterback on the roster, the Saints entered the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes, which compromised their ability to make decisions in the early days of free agency. They lost safety Marcus Williams, one of their best young players, to the Ravens. General manager Mickey Loomis couldn't get offensive tackle Terron Armstead back under contract without knowing whether they would need the cap (and cash) to pay Watson, and when Watson chose to go elsewhere, they lost Armstead to the Dolphins.
The restructures from years past and the retirements of players on those deals left the team with more than $41 million in dead money on its 2022 cap, the ninth most of any team. New Orleans didn't have the room to make significant additions, and the players it imported were veterans without significant markets elsewhere, including Dalton, wideout Jarvis Landry and safety Tyrann Mathieu. It was locked into deals for players with uncertain production profiles in 2022, including quarterback Taysom Hill, wide receiver Michael Thomas and running back Alvin Kamara.
Without the ability to spend heavily in free agency and saddled by an unmovable core of contracts, the Saints decided to do what they do best and sell out their future to try to win today. They paid a premium to get draft picks to fill their long-term holes at wide receiver and left tackle now, as opposed to trying to add extra selections to sprinkle in much-needed depth around their roster. After years of contending with Brees and Payton in the mix, they likely suspected the first-round pick they sent to the Eagles wouldn't fall in the top 10.
What has gone wrong for New Orleans? Injuries have decimated this team. Just five players have started all 13 games this season. In addition to Penning, essential players, such as Thomas and cornerback Marshon Lattimore, have been missing most of the season. The Saints will rank among the league leaders in adjusted games lost when Football Outsiders compiles its injury data after the campaign.
While they have a 3-3 record in games decided by seven points or less, the Saints have also underperformed their point differential. They are 4-9, but they have the point differential of a 5.6-win team. I'm not sure a 6-7 team would qualify as a success given how they approached the season, but the pick they would be sending the Eagles in 2023 wouldn't be quite as devastating.
Should the Saints have seen this coming? On the one hand, it's impossible to predict injuries. Nobody could have known Penning would miss most of the season, let alone Lattimore. Picking out Thomas, who had barely played over the prior two seasons while battling ankle injuries, might have been easier.
At the same time ... yes? Absolutely yes? There were plenty of reasons the Saints should have self-scouted their chances in 2022 and recognized that it wasn't worth putting 2023 and 2024 picks at risk to get players now. They lost one of the best coaches in football and assigned his responsibilities around the staff. Dennis Allen had done an excellent job coaching the Saints' defense, but he had struggled in his prior head-coaching role with the Raiders. Any team is going to get worse when it loses Payton -- as the Saints did when their coach was suspended for the 2012 season.
After missing out on Watson, the Saints had no path to a franchise quarterback. Their quarterbacks at the time of the trade included Dalton, Hill, Winston, Ian Book and Blake Bortles. Winston had been effective last season in a seven-game sample, but it was the first time in his career he had done a solid job of protecting the football, and it came under Payton, who wasn't around to coach him up this season.
Winston threw five picks in three games before being sidelined by a fractured back, at which point the Saints turned to Dalton. The journeyman did enough to keep the job even after Winston was healthy enough to return, but this has unsurprisingly been a situation in which the starting quarterback seems to be on the verge of getting benched weekly.
It would have been foolish to believe that this team, sans Payton, would compete for a conference championship with Dalton and Winston at quarterback. In the best-case scenario, if the defense stayed healthy and the offense didn't need great quarterback play to win every week, the Saints were looking at a ceiling of 10 wins and a trip to the postseason against much better competition. Most teams wouldn't want to sell out future picks in the hopes of realizing that modest ceiling, but the Saints don't feel alive unless they're maxing out their credit cards and pushing their chips into the middle.
The Saints bet on themselves to stay competitive. The Eagles were willing to be patient and take that bet. The downside for the Eagles was a scenario in which the Saints won 10 games and handed them a pick in the same range as the one they had traded away. The upside was a world in which the Saints fell apart, and the Eagles transformed the 19th pick into a premium selection. We live in that world.
What are the lessons to be learned from this deal? For one, the cap matters. The Saints were hamstrung by their prior issues and locked into both a limited roster and limited paths to improving that roster. Pushing money into the future is a great solution until the bill comes due when those players either retire or aren't good enough to be on the roster.
With better financial management, the Saints could have just traded for Brown themselves instead of moving extra picks to land the option on a more affordable contract in Olave. The Saints, who refused to take a year off in 2021 to get their cap right and reimagine their future after Brees retired, weren't in the position to make that deal. The Eagles, who used 2021 to reset financially and clear out cap space for 2022 and beyond, were.
Organizations must also be realistic about where they stand and how close they are to competing with the top of their conferences. The Saints were unlucky to miss the playoffs last season because of a string of backup quarterbacks. But with an aging core, a new coach and an impossible cap situation, they weren't one player away unless that player was a franchise quarterback. Once Brees retired, New Orleans fooled itself into thinking it was set at quarterback because Payton coaxed a solid two months out of Winston. With Payton gone, it should have known better.
There's also a lesson to be learned about not getting fixated on individual players or solving one problem. The Eagles traded out of the No. 6 overall pick in 2021 with the Dolphins, landing a first-rounder to move down to No. 12 (and then back up to No. 10). The Eagles could have easily stayed put and landed a solution in Jaylen Waddle, but instead they moved down and still nabbed impact wide receiver DeVonta Smith.
Waddle is a better player than Smith, but the difference isn't worth everything else the Eagles have gotten from moving down. The extra first-round pick helped the Eagles make this deal with the Saints, which landed them Brown and a path to a top-five pick. The Saints wanted to win now and lost. The Eagles were willing to be patient and win later and won anyway.
What will the Eagles do with their pick? With Jalen Hurts playing MVP-caliber football, the Eagles don't need to consider another quarterback. They'll likely sign him to a massive extension this offseason, which will leave them in need of draft picks to help supplement the roster around him in the years to come.
With that in mind, could the Eagles trade down again from No. 5? If there's a team in need of a quarterback wanting to jump the Colts and Panthers, Philadelphia might be able to extract three first-rounders, much as the Dolphins did two years ago when San Francisco traded up. Getting those first-round picks would create a long-term path toward more cost-controlled talent, and landing valuable players on below-market deals is essential when you have a quarterback making north of $40 million per season.
Barring that, given the organization's tendencies over the past 20 years, it seems extremely likely the Eagles would look toward adding one of the draft's top edge rushers. Anderson probably won't make it to No. 5, and that spot might be too early for Myles Murphy (Clemson) or Tyree Wilson (Texas Tech), so I could see a relatively modest trade down in which the Eagles drop into the bottom half of the top 10, add a pick or two and still land an edge rusher to replace Brandon Graham in their rotation.
Which of these teams is in the worst long-term shape?
Let's leave the past in the past. Looking forward at what each of these teams has to work with, which is going to have the toughest time digging out of its ill-fated deal?
The Rams have the most uncertainty surrounding their future. Stafford's status for 2023 is unclear. If he needs to retire, the Rams would be forced to eat $48 million in dead money on their 2023 (and/or 2024) cap. If he's merely on injured reserve for some of next season, a team that is stretched financially would have a $20 million cap hold for him.
Beyond Stafford, though, the Rams will need to answer significant questions. Donald's contract suggests the retirement rumors from last February will be held off until 2024 at the earliest. There also were suggestions McVay might move into a media role, and having now won a Super Bowl, the 36-year-old has nothing left to prove with the organization. A team without Stafford or McVay would be in a rebuild, but the most likely scenario is that both are back with Kupp, Noteboom and the rest of the team's injured players in 2023.
The Broncos can call on a dominant defense and should be healthier in 2023. The missing draft capital will keep them from addressing holes on their offensive line, but they should have enough talent to compete if Wilson returns to form. They surely need to address their coaching staff after everything that has gone wrong with Nathaniel Hackett this season, but this team can compete for a playoff berth with a competent offense.
I would argue the Saints are in the biggest mess. Like the Broncos, they might regret their choice of coaches. Allen hasn't been as conspicuously overmatched as Hackett, but his first year hasn't gone well. With a veteran team, the Saints might not be able to afford to let Allen spend a year or two growing into his second head-coaching job.
Like the Rams, the Saints have a core of very talented players without much flexibility to do much about replacing or supplementing those key contributors. The difference between the Rams and the Saints -- and the reason I'm most worried about the Saints -- is what that core of players looks like. The Rams have some of the best players on the planet in Donald, Ramsey and Kupp. The Robinson deal looks like a mess, and Rob Havenstein has struggled this season, but every team would love to start their roster with those three superstars.
The Saints are locked into an older, less imposing core. Lattimore and Ramczyk are great players, but the Saints' largest cap hit in 2023 belongs to Thomas. Because they've restructured his deal so many times, they don't have any good options. His cap hit to play for the team in 2023 is $28.3 million. If the Saints want to cut him, they would be on the hook for $25.5 million in dead money, either all in 2023 or spread between 2023 and 2024. Restructuring him would free up $12 million in space, but they would then be forced to add that money onto the pile and eventually pay it in cap space down the line. All of this is for a player who has played 10 games over the past three seasons.
The same math holds up for many of the other veterans on this roster. Edge rusher Cameron Jordan, who has just 5.5 sacks this season and is 33 years old, is on the books for $25.6 million to play or $23.5 million in dead money. Guard Andrus Peat, who hasn't played a single full season as a pro and has lost effectiveness over the past few seasons, will cost $18.4 million to play or $17 million to release. Running back Alvin Kamara, averaging 3.7 yards per carry over the past two seasons, is at $16 million to play or $19 million in dead money. Quarterback/tight end/utility man Taysom Hill is $13.9 million to retain or $23.8 million to leave.
At least those players have existing deals. Defensive linemen David Onyemata and Marcus Davenport have a combined $18.2 million in dead money coming due at the end of their respective deals this offseason; the Saints would need to re-sign those players to new deals to restructure what's coming due.
The Saints have no choice but to restructure some of these veterans to create the $60 million in cap space they need to get compliant. Teams can designate only two players as post-June 1 releases. Designating Thomas and Peat as those players would generate about $28 million in cap space, although that dead money would then fall on the 2024 cap. Even if the Saints wanted to tear things down and rebuild, they wouldn't be able to create enough cap space. This will be a multiyear process.
On top of all that, the Broncos and Rams at least have some hope they'll get above-average quarterback play in 2023 if Stafford is healthy and Wilson bounces back. Do the Saints really have that same path? Dalton has been fine for the $3 million they're paying him, but he's 35 years old, and this is the first time he has posted an above-average passer rating since 2016. Winston has a $15.6 million cap hit in the final year of his deal in 2023, and New Orleans can free up $4.4 million by releasing him. I won't countenance another return to Hill as a primary quarterback.
There is one thing the Saints have in their back pocket, though. It's an asset that could get them back some of that draft capital. Payton retired after the 2021 season, but if he wants to coach again in the NFL, New Orleans would retain his rights and be able to request compensation in a trade for their longtime head honcho.
What would that deal look like? It depends on whether the Saints want to play hardball. When the Raiders dealt a wantaway Jon Gruden to the Buccaneers in 2001, they got back two first- and two second-round picks, as well as $8 million in cash. On the other end of the spectrum, when Bruce Arians came out of retirement to join the Buccaneers, the Cardinals let their former coach leave for next to nothing, netting a sixth-round pick for Arians and a seventh-round selection.
There should be plenty of interest in Payton's services, so the Saints should have no trouble making a market. Payton will undoubtedly want to coach a team with a full complement of draft picks in the years to come, so he's not likely to want his next team to send his old friends a couple of first-round picks as a thank you.
If the Saints can land a first-round pick from a team such as the Texans (who could send the first-rounder they received from the Browns in the Deshaun Watson deal) or Panthers for Payton, it would go a long way in helping them find their future quarterback. Payton did many great things for the franchise and the city of New Orleans, but the last thing he can do before leaving is help them out of cap hell.