2012 NFL Draft Predictions: Why Trading Up, Down Will Be Common This Year

Making up mock drafts may be a favorite pastime of the NFL media, but the reality of the draft will quickly render those mocks obsolete.

It’s not just because the upper echelon of NFL management doesn’t necessarily read the opinions of writers. There is also the small matter of teams trading up and down for draft picks that are more appropriate to their individual needs.

Thanks to the upheaval still happening around the league, the 2012 draft order stands to experience a lot of turbulence.

Teams like the Miami Dolphins and the Cleveland Browns who are in need of a shot of talent on their roster have struck out so far in free agency. With many of the bigger names on the market already signed by other teams, the front offices from these teams and others around the league will need to look to the draft to fill the holes in their rosters.

For these teams, trading up in the draft is a viable option that will allow them to target certain positions that are in desperate need of an upgrade.

For other teams, like the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, building a team through the draft is simply the standard order of things. There are areas on their rosters that could certainly use some improvement, but for the most part they have sound starters and good positional depth.

These teams don’t go after the flashy players in free agency, and they are just as satisfied to seek out diamonds in the rough later in the draft as they are to pick up the big names. In fact, giving up a single earlier draft pick for multiple later draft picks is often preferable.

All of this is par for the course going into the NFL draft in any given year, but this year’s draft promises to come with a particularly frenzied round of trading up and down. This upcoming draft has been hyped for months thanks to Andrew Luck, but there is plenty of other big-name talent available for the picking in the first round, both offensively and defensively.

Because of that focus on who will go in the first few rounds, there will be some gems who will slip through to be picked up by those teams with extra late-round picks to spare. Teams that can’t afford to take a chance in positions of need will feed those teams who have plenty of flexibility to pick for diamonds in the rough later on in the draft.

The trading game has already started for the 2012 draft, most notably between the Washington Redskins and the St. Louis Rams, but the intensity will only heat up as the draft approaches.

With some of the available talent this year, many struggling teams will jockey to pick as early and as often as possible, while teams whose rosters are more solid will happily trade down to get more out of their later draft picks.