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A week away from the 2025 NFL Draft, we’re getting a clearer picture of how things will play out.
Miami quarterback Cam Ward is extraordinarily likely to come off the board with the No. 1 overall pick. He’s out here naming Brian Callahan as the best coach in the league, Calvin Ridley as the best wide receiver and Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears as the best running backs. That is a man who knows he will soon be a Tennessee Titan. After Ward, we have very strong indications that both Colorado’s Travis Hunter and Penn State’s Abdul Carter will be selected quite early — if not at Nos. 2 and 3 overall.
We know at this point at which positions the draft is strong and at which it is weak, and we know which teams have needs in which areas of their roster. What we truly don’t know is who will be making which selections, because teams are always liable to trade up or down to try to nab their player of choice or acquire additional draft capital.
And that’s why we’re here today. We took the time earlier this week to identify some teams that could trade up, and today we’re going to highlight some teams that could be looking to make a move down in the draft, whether in the first round or at a later time.
Tennessee Titans
To be clear, we’re not talking about Tennessee trading out of the No. 1 pick. Cam Ward is going first. But the Titans don’t have a third-round pick thanks to last year’s L’Jarius Sneed trade, so they could easily trade down from No. 35 to try to pick up an additional Day 2 selection.
New England Patriots
If both Travis Hunter and Abdul Carter are off the board when it’s the Patriots’ turn to pick, that could be a spot for them to move down and collect extra draft capital with which to fill their many needs. If they don’t think Will Campbell or Armand Membou are slam-dunk left tackle options, that could be something we see happen.
Carolina Panthers
The Panthers just have so many needs on their roster. If they’re not in love with the options at wide receiver or defensive end or even cornerback, they could be a good partner for a team looking to move ahead of the Saints for one reason or another. (Probably for their choice of the second quarterback off the board.)
Dallas Cowboys
Stephen Jones recently said the Cowboys were more likely to trade down than up, so we’ll include them here. Dallas has some extra Day 3 picks but is also down a fourth-rounder thanks to the Jonathan Mingo trade. If none of the receivers have come off the board yet and the Cowboys don’t feel that strongly about which one is the top guy, they could choose to move down a bit and take their pick later, while snagging more picks on Day 2 or 3.
Atlanta Falcons
Atlanta only has five picks in this draft. That’s got to make the Falcons a trade-down option at some point.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
General manager Jason Licht recently mentioned that the Bucs will have the opportunity to move down the board and pick up some extra midround selections. If he’s already openly musing about it, we might as well detail the possibility here.
Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings have even fewer picks in this draft (four) than do the Falcons. And we have seen during his time as general manager that Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is more than willing to freely move up and down the board — even if he ends up “losing” the deal on some of the trade value charts.
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams don’t have a second-round pick. They also didn’t make a single pick in the first round between 2016 and 2024, so we know they don’t fear not having a Day 1 selection. They could move down a few spots and try to get more picks on Day 2 and 3 so they could use volume to fill out the rest of the roster.
Washington Commanders
The Commanders traded some of their draft picks to nab Deebo Samuel and Laremy Tunsil, so moving down to recoup some of those selections could make a degree of sense.
The 2025 NFL Draft will take place from April 24 to 26 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. More draft coverage can be found at CBSSports.com, including daily mock drafts, consensus prospect rankings, biggest team needs and more.
