The Philadelphia Eagles dealt their No. 28 pick last week to Buffalo for disgruntled LT Jason Peters. The move is an extremely good one in my opinion for the Eagles and falls right in line with their philosophy of beefing up the front to allow them to run the Reid’s offense.
And with the likes of DE Justin Tuck, DE Osi Umenyiora, DE/LB DeMarcus Ware and DT Albert Haynesworth in the NFC East, you can’t be weak up front.
Reid understands this and that’s why he went out and signed OT Stacey Andrews early in free agency and now dealt for Jason Peters. Although rumors were swirling last week that they might target WR Anquan Boldin with one of their first round picks, solidifying the line makes a lot more sense.
For Buffalo Bills fans, it has to be very demoralizing to see Peters go. The franchise finds a diamond in the rough – an un-drafted free agent that they develop into a big-time LT, and then because Ralph Wilson is too cheap to open his pocket book, he gets dealt in his prime.
How can you expect to build a winner if every time a homegrown player becomes a stud, you’re forced to deal him because the money is too great? Not by giving $6.5M to pick up 35 year-old T.O. They’d have been much wiser to shift that money towards Peters and keep the left side of the line intact for the next five years. Quality left tackles are much more difficult to come by in football than wide receivers.
The Giants look to be busy all week and right on up to the NFL draft with 10 picks and five in the top 100. With very few holes to fill and an extremely talented roster, New York’s only got room for maybe five of these picks. So don’t be surprised if a few are packaged together to either land WR Braylon Edwards from Cleveland, or move up in the draft to land one of the top three receivers: Jeremy Maclin, Michael Crabtree or Darius Heyward-Bey.
On the other end of a few potential deals, look for the Browns to stockpile on draft choices by moving some veterans who might not fit in with Mangini’s program. A year after trading away all its day one draft choices: 2008′s 1st round pick in ’07 for Quinn, its 2nd for DT Corey Williams and its 3rd for DT Shaun Rodgers, this year should be the opposite.
If the rumored deals go through, Cleveland should receive another 1st, 3rd and 5th for Bralyon and a 2nd or 3rd for Quinn. That’ll give them a lot of choices in the top 100 which they’ll use to rebuild the franchise from the ground up once again.
And year 10 of rebuilding continues…
