00:00To trade down or not trade at all.
00:04Let's talk about it here in Below the Belt, which is brought to you by Window Nation.
00:09A lot of talk about going up and the Cowboys potentially trying to go to six.
00:14In fact, I think that's the most commonly mocked trade I have ever seen in the history of NFL mock
00:21drafts.
00:21Is everybody trying to put Dallas up to six with Cleveland, which is there's a lot of chatter about it.
00:27It makes sense in terms of I think if you just look at the numbers and trying to couple it
00:30up and do those different things, that all makes sense.
00:33But it's it's such a consistent projection from a lot of people that it does make you wonder, all right,
00:40how legitimate is that versus how much is there smoke out there?
00:42So we're going to talk about it before we do.
00:44One of the ways that the Cowboys may go up, one of the ways that the Cowboys may look to
00:50trade up or one of the things that's been discussed is the idea of if David Bailey or Arvel Reese
00:53were to start falling down the board.
00:56Now, I don't think there's any chance Arvel Reese falls.
00:59I think if he doesn't get picked at two, he would get picked at three, regardless of what it is.
01:04If Arvel Reese got picked at two, I think Arizona, by the way, is bluffing.
01:08I think this whole thing's a bluff.
01:09You think they're going to stay at three?
01:11No, the whole thing of drafting Jeremiah Love there at three.
01:13I don't believe it.
01:14I can see that.
01:15It just it all started like whenever something like that pops up.
01:18No way.
01:19Yeah.
01:19Whenever something like that pops up right there, especially from a team that's been so desperate to get out.
01:23That just seems like, well, we'll be happy to sit in here and take the guy that everyone loves.
01:27Like everyone thinks it's so great.
01:28We'll just take him.
01:29But for me, I'd use the bait as Bailey or Reese.
01:32I guess they don't know which one to do, though, because I'm not I'm not jumping up for love.
01:38I'm jumping up for Reese.
01:39And that's that's exactly why I think Arizona can't even pick the right bait.
01:44That's that's one of the reasons why I think it's going to be Reese that gets picked at two, because
01:48I think Reese is easier to get people to come up for Bailey.
01:51Bailey, I think there's just some off the field questions with him, some maturity stuff that people are going to
01:56be like, all right, is that is that the guy I want?
01:58Or do I want to stay back here and do I want to take somebody else?
02:01Is this really worth it?
02:02Is this worth the gamble?
02:03I think Bailey, if he doesn't go three, you could see him maybe get to like five or six.
02:08And if that happened, then maybe Dallas does call.
02:11Maybe Dallas does go up.
02:12So that's why it was significant the other day when the report came out that the Jets had canceled their
02:1630 visit with David Bailey because everybody had assumed, all right, that means you're taking Arvel Reese.
02:21Why else would you just end this?
02:23I think that happened, what, last year, two years ago when whoever was at the top of the draft figured
02:28out which quarterback they were taking.
02:29So they canceled the visits with the others.
02:31They're just like, all right, we know who we got now.
02:33So the Jets were having their pre-draft press conference today.
02:36Okay, the Jets general manager whose name is Doug Moogie, I think is his name.
02:41Yeah.
02:42So he was doing the pre-draft press conference and he got asked about this.
02:46Hey, what's the deal with canceling the Bailey visit?
02:48Are y'all not going to take him?
02:49I'll say this.
02:50With top 30s, every team uses them differently and has different ways of using that mechanism.
02:57Some don't even use the top 30s at all, right?
02:59I would say for us, when we do top 30s, every single player in case is different.
03:04Sometimes I want this player to meet with our player engagement department.
03:08Sometimes I want this player to meet with our sports performance.
03:10Sometimes it's purely medical.
03:12Sometimes it's a recruiting process.
03:14Sometimes it's a smokescreen.
03:16And in regards to David, we had good touch points with him at the combine.
03:20We went to his pro day, had a good dinner with him, and we were just kind of juggling our
03:2430 and how to use them.
03:25And I wouldn't look too much into a cancellation because there was other ones that we may have changed as
03:31well.
03:31So use your BS detector.
03:33Is that a legitimate excuse, or do you think it's like, okay, you're just still trying to create illusion around
03:38what you're going to do?
03:41Under no circumstance can you convince me that this is the right thing to do.
03:48I have lobbied for teams to try to spend, I don't think you can spend enough time with a draft
03:54pick or the coach that you want to hire.
03:56I would interview a coach for five different sessions at two or three hours apiece, at least.
04:04You're going to marry this person with millions of dollars on the line for at least five years.
04:10And you're telling me that the dinner at the pro day, like there's nothing else that you can dissect or
04:15get out of visiting with that individual.
04:18Maybe they were just blown away by the two meetings.
04:20Maybe they were blown away and they're like, okay, I can leave a 5% opening, I guess, to we
04:28want to talk to someone else.
04:29We want to talk to someone else and use that visit on them if you feel that great about the
04:34couple of visits in Indy and at the pro day.
04:37So I'll leave open a 5% allowance for the Jets.
04:40I think even if you know you're taking him, there are questions about off the field stuff with him.
04:47I think if you know you're taking him.
04:48The only one I haven't read, I trust you, but I haven't seen anyone else kind of reporting on this.
04:55It's maturity stuff.
04:57It's maturity.
04:57It's not anything like the main thing where he's got a legal case out there.
05:01It's more just stuff of like, all right, is he a little bit of a hothead?
05:05Is he always the most mature individual?
05:08And so some people just, they don't want to mess with that at that level of the draft.
05:14So I would think that even if you were comfortable with everything you'd said,
05:17if you were about to pick him and make him the number two overall pick,
05:20you'd still want to say, all right, let me get one last conversation in.
05:24I would meet with him again.
05:25Which says to me that that is definitely more likely that they would just say,
05:29we're not going to take him, so we're not using that on it.
05:31And so I think that's a little bit of BS.
05:33I still think they're going to take Arvel Reese,
05:34but there's a ton of disagreement from really respected individuals about who the Jets are going to take.
05:41So everybody's clearly hearing some different things.
05:44And now we've got Peter Schrager up here saying that he thinks Caleb Downs gets taken by Kansas City at
05:48nine overall on ESPN.
05:50Chop, you think this is smoke?
05:52He also said Bain and Delane around for the Cowboys at 12.
05:57Look, I think that, you know, if you were going to take, if you knew that's who you were going
06:02to take
06:03and you were dead set on it, you don't need to do any other, you know, the whole thing,
06:07there's paralysis by analysis.
06:09I do think you can, you know, maybe overcomplicate things.
06:13That doesn't mean that you don't want the information.
06:15But if you're comfortable and you're dead set on him and you're comfortable with the information that you have
06:20and you want to basically steal an extra visit, you know, I don't think that's a crazy thing.
06:28Chop doesn't believe in interviews anyway.
06:30That's true.
06:31Look, I think that they are, they skew too much towards charisma.
06:39So would you, if you were working in an NFL front office, would you just,
06:43would you not even want to participate in the 30 visits before you drafted somebody?
06:47No, I think, I think you still do.
06:49I'm just saying, like, I think you do, like, you're inherent, I don't think,
06:52I think it's human nature.
06:53We can't really control it.
06:54It just, if you're charismatic, I'm going to like you in the interview more.
06:57If you're not charismatic, you know, I'm going to say people, people thought Amari Cooper,
07:03I believe, didn't love football because he was, you know, chess, right?
07:08Yeah.
07:08He was, you know, he wasn't outwardly emotional.
07:12I think outwardly emotional people look like they care more when I don't think that you can prove that.
07:18But, yeah, I still think it's good to use them for the stuff where you have questions about people.
07:22Yeah.
07:22If you don't want to, like, just, okay, we don't want to swoon over interviewing this player.
07:26Like, we're going to interview 30 players that we have no questions about,
07:29and we're just going to let ourselves be influenced by personality type.
07:32Yeah, that's probably not going to be the most helpful way to do it.
07:35But I would guess that it's, I would want to talk to Bayley, or I'd want to talk to Bane
07:39about stuff with his, you know, issues.
07:42I want to try to get Bayley to slip up again with, like, a temper or a character question of
07:47what would you do here.
07:48Did they do all those scenarios with him when they ate dinner?
07:51Were they trying to tick him off and get under his skin and see how he would react in Indy?
07:56Maybe they did.
07:57I would make sure I checked that box before I took him at two.
08:01Well, either way, I don't think that David Bayley is going to fall far enough that the Cowboys are going
08:06to be able to go trade up and get him.
08:07So if David Bayley doesn't fall, I don't think the Cowboys are going to trade up.
08:11And WFAA had kind of collected Dallas's history in the Jerry Jones era of making trades and how they generally
08:18attack things.
08:19And I think it's more important to look at it less so through the lens of the Jerry era and
08:25more through the lens of,
08:26if you were to look over the last 25, 30 years, who was running the draft?
08:30Like, was it Tom Soskowski?
08:32Was it Will McClay?
08:33That's where you start seeing some different patterns in terms of how they do things.
08:37So, for instance, before Will McClay ran the draft in 2008, 2010, and 2012.
08:43So every other year for six years.
08:46The Cowboys traded up.
08:49Either they went up with their pick or they traded to pick up an additional pick in the first round.
08:53So their three consecutive trades were aggressive, moving really aggressive, trying to get after it.
08:59Then in 2013, the last draft that was run without Will McClay in charge, they traded back and they dropped
09:05way far.
09:06They dropped like 15 picks to San Francisco, and all they picked up was a third rounder in exchange for
09:10it.
09:10And it was like a back end of the third rounder, and then they picked Travis Frederick.
09:13So it was killed at the time.
09:14It obviously worked out for them.
09:16Since Will McClay took over, they've only moved their first round pick in any direction twice.
09:20Yeah.
09:20And both times, it was when they looked at it and they said, we're going to get the guy we
09:26want.
09:26We're just going to create some extra value here.
09:28So I think that's clearly how Will McClay looks at it.
09:30Let me factor in something else here that worries me about them.
09:35The clock is changing this year, and it's getting shorter.
09:40All these possibilities about moving and mocking and going up and value, I just don't give the Cowboys front office.
09:51I'm sorry to those of you over there.
09:52I know you're going to be mad.
09:53Right now, I just kind of don't get it.
09:55And I hope Will is quick with it in the moment.
09:58But it doesn't make me feel better in that it's an advantage for them to have less time on the
10:07clock in this year's draftless scenarios of all this trade talk.
10:11Of having to compute all the information, absorb it, communicate it.
10:15Now we've got to Jerry.
10:16Now we've got to do the math.
10:18I just want to point that out.
10:19Too many cooks?
10:20I don't know.
10:22Too many cooks, too many confusion.
10:24Processing it.
10:25Eight minutes.
10:26We're going down to eight minutes.
10:28For a draft in which you have two picks, and people are talking about you moving, that doesn't sound like
10:34an advantage to me to have two picks for that.
10:38I think if Bailey were to go at three, or Bailey goes in the top four.
10:42Get on that war room cam this year for the draft coverage with our guys Thursday.
10:47You think there's been some scrambling before.
10:51Pay attention to who's in that room, the position coaches in there, and how they scurry them in and out
10:56quickly for this clock adjustment.
10:58I think that if Bailey and Reese are gone in the top five, which they should be, but if Bailey
11:03and Reese are gone in the top five, they're not moving that 12th pick.
11:06They won't go back.
11:06They won't go up.
11:07I think they're just staying.
11:08So I think that'll give them just sort of a spot to just, all right, we're settled in.
11:12We're picking here, and we know that.
11:14And so then they'll just be able to look at the board when they get there.
11:1620 is the one where I think they'd like to move back if they could.
11:19Yeah.
11:20Because they look at it as all very similar players behind them.
11:23I think they'd want to stay within the first.
11:25I don't know that they want to drop out of the first to make that deal.
11:27But I thought you said you thought that a deal with Kansas City would be most likely.
11:32So why are you ruling out?
11:34Not ruling out, but you're saying they're staying if Bailey and Reese are going top five.
11:40What about Kansas City at nine?
11:43Downs?
11:44Maybe Cleveland six?
11:45Kansas City at nine would make the most sense because if they could just swap first-rounders,
11:50they then get to drop back.
11:52They keep their capital.
11:53They still pick twice in the first round, and they just shift where they're going.
11:55I don't think Kansas City wants to move.
11:58I think that's the thing.
11:59I think Kansas City wants to pick at nine.
12:02Now, Kansas City may want to come up from 29, but I don't think they want to do it at
12:04the expense.
12:05If we talk about how thin these margins are, I don't think they want to drop down from Tyson or
12:09Fano
12:10or whoever would be there for them at nine.
12:11So the history shows?
12:13In the Will McClay era, they don't move other than strategically move back.
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