We already knew that the Houston Texans had lost by winning. With their 32-31 last-minute victory over the Indianapolis Colts, Houston conceded the first overall pick in the 2023 draft to the Chicago Bears, who lost, 29-13, to the Minnesota Vikings. With that, Chicago’s 3-14 record allowed the Bears to jump the Texans at 3-13-1.
Head coach Lovie Smith did not care — he just wanted to win, and kudos to him for that.
“All right, this is the option that I had,” Smith said after the game. “So, you’re saying, hey, guys, playing this last game, all that you’ve been working for all your life, you play to win, forget that, lose the game on purpose. I think that would be a hard one to get by. They wouldn’t expect me to say that. I didn’t. Each week our game plan to be to win the game. It’s kind of simple as that. That’s what we followed through on today.”
Makes sense, though it’ll be painful a few months from now.
If Bears head coach Matt Eberflus was excited about the possibilities, he wasn’t letting on after the loss to the Vikings.
“I just found out about it. That’s something we’ll talk about in the future. I don’t really have a reaction one way or the other right now. Just that I’m focused on our guys and doing the exit interviews for tomorrow.”
Another interesting thing happened on the final day of the 2022 regular season regarding the upcoming draft. The Denver Broncos beat the Los Angeles Chargers 31-28, giving them a 5-12 mark. When the Arizona Cardinals lost 38-13 to the San Francisco 49ers, Arizona moved from the fourth overall pick to the third at 4-12, while the Seattle Seahawks — who have Denver’s pick as part of the Russell Wilson trade — now pick fifth, behind the Colts.
Where it gets interesting is that unless these teams do something to move their quarterbacks in the offseason (highly unlikely), neither the Bears nor the Cardinals need quarterbacks. Which means that the teams with Justin Fields and Kyler Murray as their quarterbacks will be very much open for business when it comes to those picks and the trade value for them.
So, who are the sellers, and who are the buyers in these new scenarios?
The sellers.
The Texans will most likely take whichever of the top two quarterbacks they prefer between Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud… unless another team moves up to the Bears’ spot. Do the Texans then take the other top quarterback, or do they declare their openness for a trade as well?
As for the Bears, they could decide that Georgia defensive tackle Jalen Carter is the best player in this draft class (which he is), and take him first overall, regardless. But given the talent drought that franchise has right now, they need as many picks as possible. The Cardinals are in a similar boat, though TCU receiver Quentin Johnston would have to be an attractive option at three.
The Colts absolutely need a quarterback. They will also need a new head coach, possibly a new general manager, and given team owner Jim Irsay’s… um… capricious nature, one never knows how any of that will turn out. Irsay would certainly love to maximize that pick, but maybe he just takes whichever top-two quarterback is left on the board.
Unless he can’t.
The Seahawks are another wild-card here. Even if they decide to stick with Geno Smith as their new franchise quarterback, they could also look to trade down and pick up the defensive pieces they so desperately need. Seattle general manager John Schneider loves to trade down to acquire more picks, though he’s not been in a situation like this since 2010, the first year of the Pete Carroll/Schneider era. In that draft, Seattle had the Denver Broncos’ first-round pick from a 2009 trade made by the previous administration. With the sixth and 14th picks in that draft, Seattle took offensive tackle Russell Okung and safety Earl Thomas, which was a pretty good haul. Between their own picks and Denver’s, Seattle currently has the fifth, 20th, 38th, and 54th picks in the first two rounds of the draft. That’s enough to stock a good part of a defense.
The buyers.
The Detroit Lions, who the Seahawks eliminated from the playoffs on Sunday afternoon, are an interesting bidder here. They have the sixth overall pick from the Los Angeles Rams as part of the Matthew Stafford trade, and they have their own 17th pick, which may change depending on the results of Sunday night’s game between Detroit and the Green Bay Packers. Still, the Lions will have two high first-round picks, and if they want to move up, thinking that they can do better than Jared Goff, they have the capital to get that done.
The Tennessee Titans sit at 11th overall in the new order, and they also have the 42nd pick with which to work. Head coach Mike Vrabel clearly didn’t believe that third-round rookie quarterback Malik Willis was ready for prime time based on his limited experience, and the tape backed that up. So, the Titans signed veteran Josh Dobbs for the stretch run, and Dobbs didn’t really show anything special, either. Quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who’s been out since late December with an ankle injury, hasn’t been remarkable in a couple of years. He signed a four-year, $118 million contract in 2020, and he has a 2023 cap number of $36.6 million, with $18.8 million in dead cap if he’s released.
So, the Titans, who lost their last seven games and were eliminated from the postseason, may decide to go in a different direction with a new general manager, as Jon Robinson was fired in early December. Maybe the Titans have to roll some 2024 draft capital into the deal to move up.
The New York Jets have the 13th and 44th picks in the 2023 draft, and there might not be another team in more desperate need at the quarterback position. Perhaps they shine it on to a lower-regarded quarterback. Like the Titans, they’d have to throw more in the pot if they wanted to move up from where they are to where they’d need to be if they wanted to get Young or Stroud.
There's a lot that could happen.
The recent history of trading up for alleged franchise quarterbacks is mixed, at best. For every Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Robert Griffin III (pre-injuries, of course), there’s a Tim Tebow, Mitchell Trubisky, and Jared Goff who emerge as cautionary tales.
That said, with this new draft order, there could be a lot more movement for the game’s most important position. And with that, a pre-draft process that should have everyone wondering just how it will all go.
