Monti Ossenfort has said he will listen to trade offers at No. 4. The Patriots, at No. 3, will reportedly listen to offers. There is a chance the Chargers at 5 will also market their pick for the right price. This is what happens at the top of the draft.
But being open to talk and actually making a move are two different things. And while, for instance, the "trade value charts" that float around the internet and are a base of what teams use to make deals suggest that the Cardinals getting 11 and 23 in the first round for 4 makes sense, it really doesn't. You can call it a "quarterback surcharge" (because teams are trading up for QBs) or whatever you want, but there is a fair trade, and then there is what happens at the top of the draft.
"There's certainly, 'It's too good of a deal,' because of what you're getting back," Chargers GM Joe Horitz said during his pre-draft press conference. "They have to make it attractive for us to move away from those players. The whole, 'It's a fair trade, it's a wash,' I don't think that's a trade that we're interested in.
"If we're going to trade away from great players, there has to be a reason, in terms of value, for us. Certainly, there are going to be more great players in the draft, but it has to make sense to you and it has to make sense to the team that is wanting to come up."
And that falls in line with what Ossenfort said, comparing it to his house that he doesn't want to move from -- until someone offers something so good that he wasn't expecting. Then the trigger basically has to be pulled.
That doesn't mean the Cardinals won't stick-and-pick at 4. But there is no way to know until we get to that point. It wouldn't necessarily be "fair" to the team trading up, but that's why the Cardinals (and a couple other teams) are in such a good position.
"I think different teams have different motivations," Ossenfort said. "We'll see how that plays out."
