Draft Week Trade Candidates: Players & Pressure Points For Trade-Ups

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Draft week is officially here. But while the NFL draft is the biggest offseason event in sports largely because of the intrigue of where the incoming college class will land, that’s not the only action set for this week. There will be trades. We don’t know how many or how big, but I can say with absolute confidence that the weekend’s Dexter Lawrence blockbuster between the Giants and Bengals is not going to be the only swap in the next five days. The NFL calendar has natural pressure points that push teams to make deals, whether it’s the trade deadline in October or the start of the league year in March. The draft is another one of those, as this marks the last chance for teams to buy or sell picks in the current year. Lawrence wasn’t the only veteran player on the trade block and there will be more deals as teams make final calculations between the known commodity or the mystery box draft pick. There will also be jockeying between teams trying to extract value out of the draft board, either moving down to acquire more picks or moving up to get prospects before a perceived value cliff drop. We’ll dig into both here: player trades that could be catalyzed by the draft, and pressure points in the first two rounds that could spark trade action. Starting with the latter, let’s dive in. Dallas Moves Up For Defense? First, it’s worth establishing that nearly every single team in the league would be willing to trade down for the right price. Some teams might even be willing to take a slight discount on the trade value charts to drop down in the order. But without a partner who is willing to pay the freight to move up, nothing happens. There has been smoke galore that the Cowboys are that motivated trader this year. Many of the popular draft analysts have included a Dallas trade-up into their mock drafts in the past week, which shows how prevalent the buzz is behind the scenes. The Cowboys themselves have indulged the conversation because it keeps them in the spotlight. On Thursday night, we’ll see if they’re willing to actually push their chips in. The rationale for a Cowboys trade-up is pretty obvious. Dallas has two first-round picks at No. 12 and No. 20 and glaring needs still to fix a defense that kept the team out of the playoffs last year. In a normal year, they could count on getting two pretty good prospects. Because of the dynamics of the 2026 class, which is shallower at the top in terms of consensus first-round prospects, the Cowboys face the prospect of ending up with lesser players than they would be accustomed to at those draft slots. The Bengals were in a similar spot to the Cowboys with big needs on defense, and they elected to trade the No. 10 overall pick days out from the draft because they already felt like the odds were strong they would be sniped on their top targets. Dallas is two slots lower than Cincinnati, so the team should be even more motivated to move up. The good news is that the 12th slot leaves them within striking distance to get deep into the top 10. The two slots to watch are the Cardinals at No. 3 overall and the Browns at No. 6 overall. Those two teams feel like the most motivated sellers in the top ten. Both have needs on the offensive line and would love to drop down to better match the pick value to the prospects available. Neither team is necessarily looking at 2026 as a competitive season, either, which makes collecting more picks a priority. Both Cardinals GM Monti Ossenfort and Browns GM Andrew Berr…