NFL Draft 2024: This Year’s Second Round Could Be a Trade Bonanza

We polled multiple front office executives and coaches, and the cutoff for real talent could be far thinner by the start of the third round.

Harrison is at the top of a deep wide receiver class in the 2024 NFL draft. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA

Day 1 of the NFL draft is often wild by default. We have a lot of teams with different needs scrambling to get a pick that can help the franchise and, on a whim, ownership can—and often does—blow it up. I can’t reiterate that enough: When your team does something difficult to fathom on draft night, 75% of the time it has nothing to do with the well-meaning scout or general manager. It’s literally an owner hearing about a player second hand while on the 13th hole at Pebble Beach, hopping in the private hovercraft and walking into the draft room to blow it up. 

Anyway, this year, I’m hearing that Day 2 will also be wild. However, this is a far more interesting kind of wild, especially for those who love the conflicting economics and different value sets of each team. After polling multiple front office executives and coaches, it seems the cutoff for real talent in this draft drops off at pick No. 110. Meaning: There are some GMs who think there are 110 good players in this draft at most. There are some who think the talent pool is far thinner and plan to recalibrate after pick No. 80. For reference, pick No. 80 is the Cincinnati Bengals at the beginning of the third round. 

What does this mean? I think there will be a lot of teams beyond No. 80 trying to move up and secure a decent player. There will also be a lot of teams immediately beyond pick No. 80 trying to flee and build up draft equity for the following year when the class might be more robust. 

Since (some) front offices got wise to certain valuable principles, there exists an understanding that teams are more willing to give up later assets (meaning picks in a subsequent draft) for what they want now. In the immediate, this is a win for the acquiring club as it doesn’t lose any equity and it gets to continue on its path of trying to win right now. But, it’s indisputable that the club receiving the picks at a later date is the true winner because it almost always receives a higher return more valuable a year from now. I’ve heard of analytically minded front office folks referring to this as theft. There are good front offices—such as the ones with the Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens—that seem to perpetually spin one pick into dozens and view the draft not as some kind of static entity but as a living, breathing concept that takes place over the course of multiple seasons. 

This year, that philosophy could clash head-on with teams who need to fill out their roster with talent but (hopefully) understand that they probably won’t be able to after the start of the third round. 

To back up for a second, this is happening because college kids are staying in college. The NIL money is good, the transfer portal offers more opportunities to play and prospects can improve their standing while still earning cash. It disincentivizes stumbling into the draft. 

Some other quick thoughts below:

•  The true value in this class may end up being the wide receiver group, which sounds like it may produce quality players into tier two and tier three. I have three receivers going in the top 10 of my mock draft and five total, and that number is too light. I also feel like more teams will have to maneuver up the board for a pass catcher than my mock reflected. That stands in contrast to the offensive tackle group, which, along with the receiver group, is held in high regard. What’s interesting is that some view a lot of the best tackles in this class as either too raw and inexperienced (and thus a toss up in terms of future production), too inferior from a measurables standpoint (i.e. short arms), or too mechanically flawed, necessitating that they would have to land with a really good offensive line coach. So if you’re a Titans fan, for example, and you have Bill Callahan, you’re going to be fine. The same goes for the Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Miami Dolphins, Green Bay Packers and a handful of other teams with truly elite developers of talent. 

We don’t talk a lot about this and often view the tackle positions as immediately slottable into the NFL. We see offensive linemen as a cleaner projection when, in reality, that can’t be further from the truth. This is especially true if you’re slotting a player on the quarterback’s blind side. Despite the discourse bringing us to a point where we’ve viewed left and right tackles as interchangeable to a degree, a mistake by the tackle on the quarterback’s blind side still yields a much higher percentage of turnover-worthy plays.

The expectation is Penix will be a first-round selection. / Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

• I have seen others write that there is an expectation that Michael Penix Jr. goes in the first half of the first round. I have heard that, too. I feel like the main reason for this has been teams getting the opportunity to get to know Penix. I spent a few hours with the Washington and Indiana quarterback for our draft preview cover story, which you can read here. He’s an impressive person who figured out a lot of the complexities of the position. He came from a high school where, at max, the team ran 10 plays a season and saw two coverages. He parlayed that into a Big Ten career in which Indiana ranked highly for the first time since the 1960s. He parlayed that into a Pac-12 career with the Huskies resulting in a title game appearance against Michigan. 

• Speaking of the quarterbacks, I have not heard this in particular, but I do wonder if the (relative) glut at the position leads a team to make a Jordan Love-type move at the back end of the first round. I have the Arizona Cardinals taking Penix in my mock draft as a Kyler Murray insurance policy. Many picks can reflect contemporary trends, and the way Love played toward the end of last season should resonate if one of the six quarterbacks we’ve discussed at length in the run-up to the draft is still available. Think of teams such as the Los Angeles Rams, New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers who all need to have an eye on the future.