Given all of our discussions about the top 3 WRs (and where they might land), this is an interesting historical footnote to the 2021 draft:
The Philadelphia Eagles’ decision to trade up for wide receiver DeVonta Smith in the NFL Draft apparently set off some angst within their division, Grey Papke of Larry Brown Sports reports.
The Eagles moved up from No. 12 to No. 10, trading with the Dallas Cowboys in order to draft Smith. In doing so, they jumped ahead of the New York Giants, who held the 11th pick and apparently were waiting eagerly for Smith to fall to them.
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg spoke to a number of college coaches about the draft, and one SEC defensive coordinator revealed that the Eagles trade made the Giants furious.
“The Giants wanted DeVonta bad,” the coordinator said. “They were pretty livid when Philly moved in front of them.”
It no doubt made the Giants even angrier that the Eagles made the swap with another NFC East rival in the Cowboys. With Smith off the board, the Giants traded down, enabling the Bears to move up for quarterback Justin Fields.
This also explains why the Giants jumped on WR Kadarius Toney at No. 20 overall.
Another good example of why teams move up 1 spot to draft a guy. It looks stupid to some people, particularly if the guy is someone that the other team wouldn’t have drafted. But you aren’t preventing that team from drafting him…you are trying to prevent someone else from moving up and drafting him.
Also justifies the Lions not moving down to No. 9 because it’s highly likely they would have lost Sewell to the Panthers, who ended up settling for OT Brady Christensen in Rd 3.
As they say “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and in this case the enemy of my enemy is both my friend and my enemy… kind of like “lets be friendly to screw our rival but then were not friends any more”.
There’s liking a guy and there’s keeping him from your rival all in one. That and the effort required a division rival as co-conspirator. It is kinda funny when it’s happening to someone else.
