Draft night trade chatter
- Draft day expectations say the 2026 NFL Draft could open with four first‑round trades, teams likely to move up aggressively. - Sources flag the Eagles and Saints as potential trade‑up actors, with Fernando Mendoza projected to go first. - Early projections suggest the board could shake fast, making Day 1 trades central to the night’s storyline. (nfl.com (foxnews.com)
Trade calls could define the first night of the 2026 National Football League draft, with NFL Media analyst Daniel Jeremiah projecting four first-round deals before the board settles. (nfl.com) Jeremiah’s final mock, published April 23, has the Philadelphia Eagles jumping from No. 32 to No. 24 and the New Orleans Saints moving from No. 9 to No. 5. He also projects the Chicago Bears to move from No. 10 to No. 8 and the Denver Broncos to climb from No. 20 to No. 18. (nfl.com) In that projection, Fernando Mendoza goes No. 1 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders, and Jeremiah wrote that the uncertainty starts “beyond the first overall pick.” The first round begins at 8 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, April 23, in Pittsburgh. (nfl.com 1) (nfl.com 2) The setup for a busy night is already there. NFL.com’s Eric Edholm wrote on March 30 that six first-round picks in the 2026 draft had already been moved in earlier trades before any team went on the clock. (nfl.com) That matters because teams are working from a board with fewer fixed points than usual near the top. NFL.com’s draft coverage on April 23 highlighted Mendoza as the presumptive No. 1 pick, while multiple mock drafts on the site kept forecasting four Round 1 trades. (nfl.com 1) (nfl.com 2) The Eagles and Saints are natural teams to watch because both have the draft capital to move. NFL.com’s team-by-team picks page lists Philadelphia with eight total selections and New Orleans with seven entering the draft. (nfl.com) The clock could add pressure to make decisions fast. NFL Football Operations says the time between first-round selections was cut from 10 minutes to eight minutes for 2026, the first such change since 2008. (operations.nfl.com) The official first-round order starts with the Raiders at No. 1, followed by the New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans and Carolina Panthers. A run of early trades would scramble that order before many viewers settle in. (nfl.com) Round 1 is in Pittsburgh on Thursday, with Rounds 2 and 3 on April 24 and Rounds 4 through 7 on April 25. If Jeremiah’s read is right, the first headline of the night may not be the pick itself but the team that paid to get it. (nfl.com)
