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The NFL Draft rumors about the Philadelphia Eagles trading up to get Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota are heating up, but to do that they'll have to get into the top-five to get ahead of the New York Jets who also need a quarterback.
Enter the Jacksonville Jaguars.
CSN Philly's Rueben Frank (@roobcsn) tells me he thinks Chip is getting ready to trade his whole draft for Mariota. http://t.co/WtGYUCIZtc
— Damon Amendolara (@DAonCBS) March 5, 2015
CSN Phildelphia's Reuben Frank thinks the Eagles recent trades and cuts to create cap room aren't to be more active in free agency. It's in preparation of paying a franchise quarterback -- and he thinks Chip Kelly will give up as many picks as it takes to get ahead of the Jets.
"They’re like $50 million under the cap, which means they can sign any free agent they want – and they could sign a bunch of them. And I started to think, why would a team want to be that active in free agency? And then I realized Chip is hoping he doesn’t have any draft picks because he’s going to trade them all ... So I started thinking, this is all a plan to have all this money under the cap, trade a bunch of draft picks, draft Marcus Mariota and build through free agency. I believe that he’s doing all this to try to make a big run at Mariota in the draft."
Frank goes on to say he thinks the Eagles trade with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but with Jameis Winston the favorite to go No. 1 overall, it would only hurt the Buccaneers to trade back behind the Jets and lose out on their franchise quarterback.
That leaves the Tennessee Titans at No. 2 overall, the Jaguars, the Oakland Raiders at No. 4, and Washington at No. 5 overall before the Jets pick at No. 6. Any one of those four teams are prime candidates to trade back, although the Titans general manager has talked up quarterback Zach Mettenberger as of late (which could mean absolutely nothing) leaving the Jaguars as the most viable team to trade up with.