The 2024 NFL Draft is under a week away here on April 19, and the latest Cincinnati Bengals speculation included a potential first round trade theory with the Green Bay Packers.
Veteran ESPN staff writer Bill Barnwell proposed the hypothetical deal on April 18, exchanging four draft picks between the two franchises in what would be a trade down for Cincy.
Bengals get: 2024 first (No. 25), 2024 second (No. 58).
Packers get: 2024 first (No. 18), 2024 third (No. 97).
For all intents and purposes, Barnwell’s suggestion is a two-pronged pick swap, in which the Bengals would move back seven spots in round one in order to jump up 39 slots later on (from round three to round two).
“I would argue the Bengals should consider trading down given how well the deepest parts of this draft hit their roster,” Barnwell stated. “They’ll need replacements for [Tee] Higgins, Trent Brown and Mike Hilton as soon as 2025, and getting an extra second-round pick to address those spots in the lineup won’t hurt.”
Out of the three positional needs he addressed (WR, OT, CB/NB), Barnwell added that offensive tackle “should be a priority” because of Brown’s injury history. And needless to say, the Higgins situation also bears watching.
As for the Packers, Barnwell noted that there’s a possibility that the Green Bay coaching staff will move 2023 right tackle Zach Tom to center.
If that occurs, Barnwell forecasted that the Packers “could move up here and grab a tackle ahead of the [Los Angeles] Rams, [Pittsburgh] Steelers and [Miami] Dolphins” — three OL-needy teams. Green Bay also moved on from long-time left tackle pillar David Bakhtiari earlier in the offseason.
Would Bengals Consider Trading Up or Down in Round 1 of NFL Draft?
According to the 2024 NFL trade value chart, the Packers would sacrifice a slim 28 points in pick value in completing this first-round move, making this a fair agreement on paper. Having said that, are the Bengals serious trade candidates next week?
The truth is, it’s not something Cincinnati does very often.
Even Barnwell acknowledged that “the last time the Bengals moved up or down in Round 1 was 2012.” So, if that trend were to continue, Cincy would stay put at No. 18 overall.
Despite that, Barnwell insisted that “with Joe Burrow getting expensive, Ja’Marr Chase about to join him and Tee Higgins on the franchise tag, Cincinnati has to be thoughtful about how it retools its roster.”
“The franchise felt the impact of losing Jessie Bates, Vonn Bell and even Eli Apple in the secondary a year ago,” the ESPN analyst continued. He added that this realization led to the Bengals re-signing Bell in 2024, among other reinforcements.
Bengals President Mike Brown Addresses Death of Bill Tobin, Father of Duke Tobin
Amid all of the draft speculation, the Bengals organization addressed the passing of Bill Tobin, father of director of player personnel Duke Tobin, at age 83.
“He was a true NFL success story,” Bengals President Mike Brown voiced. “He was a good person and I considered him a good friend. With Bill, I respected everything he said. I just took it as a given. He had an eye for players and what they would develop into. If he said the guy was a good player, then he was a good player; that’s all I would need to know. We will miss him.”
With it being draft season, and Tobin being a former area scout and general manager, the timing of this tragedy was not lost on the Cincy president.
“He’d come into my office and we had a talk every year just about this time,” Brown noted later. “He had his list of the guys in his area. I would talk with him not just about the players, but I would ask him about some others. He had a background that was a little special because both of us went back in time and we could talk about the old-time guys that we saw and the impressions they made with us and we could make comparisons to the guys of today. It was fun.”
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