Between the mock drafts and the debates over prospects you should want vs. prospects you need, one rumor about the 2026 class that seems a lot more clear after the Bengals traded the 10th pick for Dexter Lawrence on Saturday is the narrative that teams are nonplussed about the prospects. Even the players you could still draft at 10.
A non-quarterback has not been traded for a top-10 pick since Randy Moss in 2005.
And Dexter Lawrence is not Randy Moss.
With the draft still four days away, seven teams hold the first round pick of another team. Compare that to last year’s draft, when only one trade happened in the first 24 picks: The Jaguars traded up from 5 to 2 for Travis Hunter.
The cost at the time was shocking because why would you trade next year’s first round pick to move up three spots for a wide receiver/cornerback?
But now that we’re days away from the 2026 draft and the Bengals gave up a top-10 pick for a nose tackle (don’t get me wrong, he’s a great nose tackle but nevertheless that’s what he is and he’s almost 29) it’s more evident that Jacksonville’s new front office was looking a year ahead and didn’t like what they saw.
Better a swing on the most unique prospect of this generation than to risk the chance of holding onto a 2026 first round pick that might only decrease in value over the next 12 months.
If two data points doesn’t feel like enough:
The Falcons trading a 2026 first round pick to move up for James Pearce at 26 last year was even more surprising than the Hunter trade
When the Jets traded Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys, they demanded a 2027 first rounder even though Dallas already had two 2026 first rounders
The Colts trading two first round picks to the Jets for Sauce Gardner felt like an overpay
First round picks for Trent McDuffie (Rams) and Jaylen Waddle (Broncos), while not egregious as late first rounders, probably doesn’t get done in the past few years
Then there’s the Micah Parsons trade, which I want to mention did include two first round picks (normal for an edge rusher of his caliber) but also Kenny Clark. And I ask myself…how much more valuable is Lawrence than Clark really? One is a throw-in and the other got traded for pick #10.
Now we have Dexter Lawrence making some history by being traded for the 10th overall pick in the draft. There can be no other explanation other than the Bengals not feeling that there’s a single prospect available at 10 (at 10!) who would move the needle because given the dramatic salary cap savings with a rookie contract, and the flexibility to sign others that comes with building through the draft, the front office must have just been depressed after the combine.
I thought that I was going to get lambasted when I suggested that Seattle should trade pick 32 for Lawrence. Now I know that the Seahawks probably couldn’t have even traded two first round picks for Lawrence because not only was #32 way too much of a lowball offer, I don’t think #32 and a late first rounder next year is more enticing than just one top-10 pick.
Even in a bad draft class—because if the pickings are too slim at 10, just imagine how little some NFL teams think of pick 32.
Back in 2022, which is also the last time that a draft class was this barren at the quarterback position (Kenny Pickett went 22nd and then no other QBs went off for about 60 more picks), the first six picks were all made by those original teams.
Then the Giants picked 7th with a pick they got from the Bears a year before (when Chicago felt like it was better to have QB4 than next year’s first rounder).
The Seahawks picked 9th with the Broncos’ pick (Russ)
The Jets picked 10th with the Seahawks’ pick (Jamal)
Then the Saints, Lions, and Eagles traded up for picks 11, 12, and 13
Pick 13 had already been traded once in the Deshaun Watson deal
Of the final 24 picks in the 2022 first round, only 8 picks (8, 14, 17, 20, 24, 28, 30, 31) were made by the teams that originally earned that pick
The 2022 draft class, perhaps still burdened by the commotion caused in 2020, was also laden with busts.
Or at least, traditionally what we would think of as “busts” if we assumed that players needed to always live up to their draft pick status. If the teams didn’t necessarily hold those prospects in high regard though, then many of the players turned out about as good or better than expected.
Aside from several stars (Aidan Hutchinson, Derek Stingley, Gardner, Drake London, Kyle Hamilton) and very good players (Charles Cross, Travon Walker, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, Trent McDuffie, Tyler Linderbaum, Ikem Ekwonu, Jordan Davis, etc.), the 2022 class kind of put the “crap” in crapshoot.
When the Bengals looked at the players they could draft at 10 this year, when they see a tackle like Monroe Freeling, do they see Evan Neal?
When they look at Rueben Bain, do they see Kayvon Thibodeaux?
When they thought they could at least maybe get a good guard at 10, do they instead see the next Kenyon Green?
Every draft class has busts. But some draft classes, it’s as if teams know that they have to ignore red flags because they’d rather take a big swing in the top-15 than just get a rotational edge rusher in the first round.
And this year you have teams trying to get out of the first round altogether by trading for veterans such as Lawrence, Gardner, Parsons, McDuffie, and Waddle.
Between 2023-2025 we didn’t see any players traded for first round picks.
That’s not a good sign for the draft.
Going back to 2022, the Detroit Lions held the 32nd overall pick because of the previous year’s trade with the Rams involving Matthew Stafford.
Then they used it to make a trade I still find quite shocking:
Lions trade picks 32, 34, 66 to Vikings
Vikings trade picks 12, 46 to Lions
That’s it???
The Lions traded up 20 spots in the first round for Jameson Williams by basically trading picks 34 and 66 for 46. I’m still not sure how the Vikings “win” here except they just thought three picks is better than two.
For what it’s worth, Minnesota drafted safety Lewis Cine with pick 32, a player who was quickly bounced out of the league after playing in 10 career games. In the third round they picked linebacker Brian Asamoah, a player who never started a single game for Minnesota. They traded down from 34 and then traded down again…
The end result was that the Vikings had a really bad draft class. That might not be just because of one trade, but is Jameson Williams better than their entire class put together?
Probably.
I’m not saying that the Seahawks should trade up to 12 because prices are down. Actually, what I am saying is that if the Seahawks trade down from 32, the price might upset most fans. If the prices are low at 10, just imagine how low they’ll be at 32.
The Seahawks are entering the 2026 class with the second-least amount of draft capital of any team in the NFL.
And that’s probably by design. Can they get more for 2027? That could be Seattle’s best option. But they’ll need to find a buyer and that could be a problem.