5 Trades We Do Not Want to See During 2024 NFL Draft

The 2024 NFL draft has arrived, and Thursday night's opening round promises to be filled with more twists and turns than a Barry Sanders highlight reel.

We can assume at this point that the Chicago Bears won't shock the world and will take USC quarterback Caleb Williams at No. 1 overall. After that, though, it's impossible to know how things will unfold. The cloud of uncertainty is carried by the reality that trades are likely to dominate Round 1.

There's a lot of talent to be found at the top of the draft, but teams will inevitably scramble for the prospects they covet most. Others may look to trade down to acquire more picks for a loaded Day 2 player pool, and a few veterans might be on the move.

While we love the chaos draft-day trades can bring, we love seeing players and teams finding on-field success even more. With this in mind, here are five hypothetical deals we hope we don't see on Thursday night.

We'll dive into why each trade could happen, along with the player- or team-specific reasons why we hope they don't.

If the Bears do take Williams at No. 1, and the Washington Commanders take LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels at No. 3, the Minnesota Vikings could make an aggressive play for the New England Patriots' third overall selection.

Minnesota has the 11th and 23rd overall picks, and it reportedly loves North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye—at least, more so than the New York Giants, who would only have to move up from No. 6.

"Minnesota is better armed, more desperate than the Giants at No. 6," ESPN's Adam Schefter told Get Up (h/t Bleacher Report's Doric Sam).

Here's the problem. According to NBC Sports Boston's Tom Curran (h/t Bleacher Report's Julia Stumbaugh), New England is hoping to get more than three first-round picks. The 11th and 23rd selections might not be enough. Could the Vikings be desperate enough to include star wide receiver Justin Jefferson in a trade to No. 3?

According to The Athletic's Dianna Russini, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is facing a lot of pressure to land the next franchise quarterback.

"Adofo-Mensah is running out of time," she wrote. "This might be the best opportunity he has to add a franchise-altering passer."

We hope that landing a quarterback like Maye doesn't result in Jefferson going to New England. Say what you will about Kirk Cousins' place in the QB hierarchy, but he's a Pro Bowl-level passer at his best. With all due respect to Jacoby Brissett and Bailey Zappe, the Patriots don't have one on their roster.

And if New England trades out of range of one of the top signal-callers—Williams, Daniels, Maye and Michigan's J.J. McCarthy—it might not have one in the foreseeable future. It's hard to imagine Jefferson would be as fun to watch with an underwhelming Patriots roster and some middling quarterback play.

This theoretical deal could also create a dicey situation for Maye, who has loads of potential but may not be an immediate star. Going to a team where the front office is facing pressure to win now—and one that just traded its best offensive player—would be less than ideal.

Whether the Patriots take a QB at No. 3 or trade the pick to a team that will, we're likely to see three quarterbacks off the board in the first three selections.

The fourth could come soon after, though. The Giants will be a threat to take a signal-caller, and the Arizona Cardinals and Los Angeles Chargers will be in positions to trade their selections.

Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated reported that both the Cardinals and Chargers are open to trading down.

New York could also be a threat to take a quarterback at No. 6, which could leave other QB-needy teams such as the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders desperate to land a tier-2 prospect at the position such as Washington's Michael Penix Jr. or Oregon's Bo Nix.

Denver (No. 12) picks one spot ahead of the Raiders, and if Las Vegas wants to jump the Broncos for a signal-caller, Penix could be the target.

According to ESPN's Matt Miller, the Raiders "really do like" Penix and could take him at No. 13. We're hoping they don't like him enough to deal extra capital to secure his services.

Moving up for the Washington product wouldn't be great value for the Raiders. Every prospect comes with some risk, but he has a notable injury history and some serious questions about his true upside.

"Penix's lack of touch, shaky pocket management and minimal ability to create plays will limit his ceiling in the pros," Derrik Klassen of the Bleacher Report Scouting Department wrote.

Penix is too much of a boom-or-bust prospect to justify an early first-round pick, and it's a gamble Las Vegas doesn't need to take. The Raiders showed a lot of promise under head coach Antonio Pierce down the stretch last season, and they could help build on that by taking an instant difference-maker at a different position at No. 13.

A smarter move would be to grab a prospect like Oregon State lineman Taliese Fuaga or Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry at No. 13 and then consider a quarterback later in the draft—possibly in Round 2 or by trading into the tail end of Round 1.

Trading up for Penix would be a massive reach and would place undue expectations on a prospect who will likely need time to adapt to the nuances of the pro game.

While quarterback will be the position many teams target when trying to trade up on Thursday night, we could see teams eyeing offensive skill players, too.

The Buffalo Bills, for example, are reportedly interested in landing a receiver and are enamored with Washington's Rome Odunze.

"Word is that they love Odunze and loosely know what it would take to acquire him," ESPN's Jeremy Fowler wrote. "Do I expect Buffalo to trade up for him? No, that's a steep climb into the top 10."

We'd love to see Odunze teaming up with Josh Allen, Dalton Kincaid and James Cook for the foreseeable future. It would be fun to watch him playing with Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and the Dallas Cowboys too, but the enjoyment probably wouldn't last.

Dallas has far more pressing needs to address in Round 1, specifically along the offensive line and on defense—players like Tyron Smith, Tyler Biadasz, Dorance Armstrong and Johnathan Hankins departed this offseason. It also has an uncertain future, as Prescott and Lamb are both impending 2025 free agents.

However, the Cowboys do need receiver help and continue to insist they're "all-in" on the 2024 season. Moving up for a receiver like Odunze, LSU's Brian Thomas Jr. or Georgia tight end Brock Bowers would certainly be an "all-in" move.

Would it be logical? No, not in a draft with as much receiver depth as this year's. However, the Cowboys have a recent history of doing their own thing on draft day—like reaching for Mazi Smith in Round 1 last year.

Moving up for a receiver would give Dallas plenty of playmakers but would leave them with a very unbalanced roster. It wouldn't do anything to address the contract situations of Prescott and Lamb, either.

There's a real chance that should this hypothetical trade occur, a top receiver like Odunze will enter 2025 with a rebuilding Cowboys team, a new head coach, no elite receiver opposite him and no Pro Bowl quarterback under center.

If teams such as Buffalo and Dallas do look to move up in Round 1 for a skill player, Denver might be a willing trade partner—specifically, if it wants to land a quarterback in the first round.

Unless the Broncos can land one of the top four QB prospects, there isn't one worth taking at No. 12, there just isn't. In Denver's case, the quarterback in question might be Nix.

"The Broncos quietly did a lot of work on Oregon QB Bo Nix—they had an hour-long Zoom with him on March 7, then sent a Sean Payton-led contingent to Eugene to work him out on March 18, per sources," Albert Breer of TheMMQB posted on X.

Trading back and grabbing the 24-year-old before the end of Round 1 is a potential avenue of approach because A.) the Broncos don't have a second-round pick, B.) it would give Denver the fifth-year option and C.) the Los Angeles Rams have shown interest in Nix and do have a second-round selection.

"The two teams I've heard connected to Nix are the Broncos and Los Angeles Rams," Breer wrote for Sports Illustrated on Wednesday.

We hope not to see things unfold this way for a couple of reasons. For one, Nix has upside but probably isn't ready to be an immediate starter.

"Oregon's offense lightened the load on him mentally by spamming screens, run-pass options and simple vertical concepts," Klassen wrote. "Even a lot of Oregon's more traditional passing concepts were made easier to read out and trigger."

In Denver, Nix would face a lot of pressure to get on the field early, especially after the Russell Wilson debacle and with Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson being the only viable alternatives.

The Broncos don't have a great offensive supporting cast either, with Courtland Sutton (772 yards) being the only returning player who topped 700 receiving yards last season. Head coach Sean Payton has a track record of getting the most out of his quarterbacks, but he'll bring pressure to win right away after failing to make it work with Wilson.

We'd much rather see Nix land with a team like the Rams—where he could sit behind Matthew Stafford for a couple of years before taking over an offense that does have legitimate playmakers.

Another reason L.A. would be a good landing spot for Nix? He'd get to work with offensive guru Sean McVay. But we can't envision the Rams flipping the switch on a quarterback pick in Round 1.

Hopefully, we do get to see the coach and the team make a selection on Thursday night, though. McVay, general manager Les Snead and the Rams have done a tremendous job of uncovering gems like Kyren Williams, Kobie Turner and Puka Nacua later in the draft.

It'll be fun to see what they can find in the first round, and to this point, we have no idea what McVay's perfect first-round prospect is. L.A. hasn't used a first-round selection since he took over in 2017.

The Rams' last first-round selection was Jared Goff in 2016.

While it's hard to see them not making a first-round pick now that they have one, they could trade out. The Houston Texans did it when they sent the No. 23 selection to Minnesota, and the Detroit Lions have openly said they'll do it if their preferred prospect isn't available.

"If we're sitting there and our guy's not there, we will move back," Lions coach Dan Campbell said, per ProFootballTalk's Michael David Smith.

The Rams have the 19th overall pick, which would be a high spot from which to trade out of the round entirely. However, one trade back could place them in a range where it is comfortable trading out entirely.

Even with 11 total selections, more picks could entice a franchise that has found recent success drafting outside of Round 1. And it's not as if Snead doesn't have a history of trading picks for players.

Hopefully, the Rams eschew both of those options and actually make a pick on Thursday. We've been waiting for seven years to see what McVay can get out of a first-round rookie, and we'd hate to have to continue waiting until 2025.