What If The Bills Traded Up Twice In Second Round?
Buffalo Bills insider Chris Brown recently wrote an article about how after the Bills traded up in the second round to get linebacker Reggie Ragland, they considered trading up again to get into the later half of the second round in order to get another player that they coveted from Alabama named Jarran Reed. The Bills showed interest in the defensive tackle Reed even before the draft by inviting him to Buffalo for a pre-draft visit.
According to Brown, General Manager Doug Whaley said “The two guys that were there were Ragland and Jarran Reed. When Reed started falling we thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute. We’ve got a chance to get three first rounders with our first three picks.’ That would’ve put us over the edge.”.
The team ultimately decided that they did not have the draft capital to work out a trade. One of the teams they were trying to trade with was Seattle at #56 overall. In an ironic twist, Seattle actually ended up trading up from #56 to #49 (the Bills original spot before trading with the Bears to take Ragland) in order to draft the same player that the Bills coveted, Jarran Reed.
If the Bills were able to pull off a trade and Seattle did not take Reed, would the trade have been worth it? Let’s examine. In order to gauge this, let’s look at what the Bills would’ve given up. After the Bills made the trade to move up for Ragland, they only had three picks remaining in the draft that they could trade. They couldn’t trade their compensatory picks in the fourth and sixth rounds per NFL rules. This meant the Bills could only trade their #80, #156 or #192 picks.
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These “tradeable” picks had a combined value of 233.6 points (#80 – 190, #156 – 29, #192 – 14.6) according to Pro Football Talk’s draft trade value chart. The Seahawks #56 overall pick is worth 340 points according to the same chart.
The Bills could have considered trading one of their draft picks next year but they already traded away their fourth rounder for next year to get Ragland which would have made it a lot tougher to give up another pick in the same draft.
The Bills three picks didn’t even add up to the value of the pick they would have had to trade for but let’s pretend it did for the sake of comparison. With those picks, the Bills chose DT Adolphus Washington (80), RB Jonathan Williams (156) and WR Kolby Listenbee (192).
While Jarran Reed is one heck of a defensive tackle, Adolphus Washington is no slouch plus the Bills got a blazing fast wide receiver and a running back with a ton of potential who was overlooked because he was coming off an injury. The players the Bills were able to acquire with those picks were more valuable to the team than just having Jarran Reed.
In the end, the Bills got the better value by staying put and not trying to trade up for Reed. Part of the reason for that is that they are lucky that Washington fell to them at #80 in the draft.
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The three tackles drafted after the Bills took Washington were Javon Hargrave (89), Vincent Valentine (96), and Sheldon Day (103). None of these three players possess the potential that Adolphus does and so if the Bills were unable to land him, we could be having a different conversation right now.
Luckily for Buffalo, they did not have the draft capital to make the trade and there were able to stay put while still getting a very good defensive tackle who could see significant time this year and may even end up being better than Jarran Reed one day.