Quantitative analysis guru shares if Commanders should trade down in draft

Quantitative analysis guru and SumerSports vice president Eric Eager is among those who believe the Washington Commanders should grab additional assets by trading down from the second overall pick of the 2024 NFL Draft. 

"[Trading back] is a very rational thing to do," Eager recently told John Keim of ESPN. "Washington doesn't have that many good players ... so you're probably going to draft the quarterback into a situation that unless he is a true unicorn, he's going to struggle. And when everybody always cites the stats of '(Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes) sat for a year', well, of course he sat for a year, he went to a good team."

Washington finished this past season at 4-13 and has since hit a figurative reset button. The Commanders have a new owner in Josh Harris, a new general manager in Adam Peters and a new head coach in Dan Quinn. 

It's widely thought the club will look for an upgrade at quarterback to replace 2022 fifth-round draft pick Sam Howell. Many have predicted in mock drafts that Washington will use the second overall choice of this year's player-selection process to acquire either LSU signal-caller Jayden Daniels or North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye.

The New England Patriots currently possess the draft's third pick and reportedly could get a top-10 selection and three second-round choices if they were willing to move down in the draft order. 

Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic wrote for a piece published Thursday that "there’s some buzz that de facto Patriots general manager Eliot Wolf wants to accumulate draft capital and build up the roster" by trading pick No. 3.

Washington theoretically could beat Wolf to the punch, but Eager noted that the Commanders would do well to spread accumulated picks across multiple years. 

"If you hit on all those picks, congratulations. But you have to then pay all those guys," Eager explained. "If you kind of stagger the windows on all those players, that might be a better way to go about it."

In mock drafts updated this week, Ryan Wilson and Chris Trapasso of CBS Sports predicted Washington will select Daniels with the second pick. CBS' Josh Edwards linked the Commanders with Maye for a mock draft posted on Thursday.