It will cost a ton for Buffalo Bills to move up in 2018 NFL Draft

The Buffalo Bills recently stocked up on some draft picks but it will cost them an arm and a leg to move up in the 2018 NFL Draft.

The Buffalo Bills recently made some bold moves when they traded Sammy Watkins and Ronald Darby in separate trades during training camp. Those trades brought in Jordan Matthews and E.J. Gaines in addition to two draft picks for the 2018 NFL Draft giving Buffalo two selections in each of the first three rounds.

The consensus is that if the Bills don’t see progress from Tyrod Taylor this season, they may use those draft picks to move up in the draft in order to target a potential franchise quarterback. While Buffalo has the ammo to move up, fans might not be happy with what the team would need to give up to make a trade happen.

There are four quarterbacks who are considered part of the top-tier in next year’s NFL draft, so the Bills would need to move up into the top four picks in order to guarantee that they will get one of them. Those quarterbacks are Sam Darnold (USC), Josh Allen (Wyoming), 2016 Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson (Louisville), and Josh Rosen (UCLA). There are also rumors that Darnold may not come out so the Bills might need to land in the top 3 if that happens.

First, let’s dig into what other teams parted with to move up to the top of the draft to see what the cost could be. After that, we will discuss exactly which draft picks the Bills would most likely have to give up to move up to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th spots in the 2018 NFL Draft. The trades we will examine are the trades for Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff, Carson Wentz and Robert Griffin III.

I chose to exclude the Blaine Gabbert trade since he was taken 10th overall and it wasn’t at the top of the draft. The other recent trade ignored was when the Jets moved up to No. 6 to get Mark Sanchez. In that trade, they traded many players in addition to draft picks which made it impossible to quantify on a points system. Let’s start with the most recent trade for Mitch Trubisky. If you don’t care about any of the previous trades you can skip straight to the second to last slide which will tell you what the Bills will have to give up.