Apart from this unique offseason, big NFL trades involving players rarely happen. Fortunately, the NFL Draft has a way of bringing out every general manager's wild side. Draft day moves are common although they rarely involve big names.
But in a piece that combines one-in-a-million trade scenarios with deals that actually do make some sense, Grantland's Bill Barnwell threw a few headline grabbers out there. Specifically, one of his trades had the Cleveland Browns sending quarterback Johnny Manziel and the No. 19 overall pick this year to the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for the No. 27 and No. 60 pick this year and a conditional fifth-rounder in 2017.
"Oh, let's have some fun," Barnwell wrote, acknowledging the unlikelihood of this deal. "The Cowboys might have been smart enough to ignore Jerry Jones and take Zack Martin over Johnny Manziel in last year's draft, but after a disastrous rookie season for Manziel in Cleveland, Jones can have his cake and eat it, too. This trade basically values Manziel as equivalent to the 105th selection in the draft, the sixth pick of the fourth round. That seems fair. The Cowboys would get a heavy discount on Manziel's salary, too; they would owe Johnny Football a total of just $3.3 million in base salaries over the next three seasons, leaving this as a low-risk, high-reward trade possibility.
"It would be depressing for the Browns to move on from the 2014 first-rounder after one abbreviated season, but Manziel should be treated like a sunk cost. If the Browns don't think he'll ever mature into the quarterback they wanted him to be when they drafted him, now is the time to trade Manziel, before his value erodes any further. They'll have to eat $4.6 million in additional dead money on their cap this year, but Cleveland has $27 million in cap space, so that's no problem. They do move down as part of this deal, but they pick up a second-rounder and a conditional pick that could turn into a higher selection - let's say a second-rounder - if Manziel plays 500 snaps for Dallas in 2015 or 2016."
Remember, this is just a hypothetical situation and an extremely unlikely one at that. But Barnwell does bring up some good points.
With Cleveland's rumored interest in Marcus Mariota, it seems clear that they have lost faith in Manziel. Moving on now while some teams may still be intrigued by his upside would net them the biggest return and Dallas did have interest in Manziel prior to the 2014 draft. The St. Louis Rams also kicked the tires on trading back into the first-round for Johnny Football but would likely pass on any offer now that they dealt for Nick Foles.
Would any team be interested in trading for Manziel at this point? We'll find out on draft night.
