ما هي 10 من غير QBs على الأرجح التي من شأنها أن تختار اثنين من الجولة الأولى في التجارة؟

Players like Micah Parsons are rarely, if ever, traded.

NFL teams do not let top-tier talents at top-tier positions get away, either as free agents or in trades. More often than not, no matter how toxic things seem, teams simply pay the player more than anyone at their position has ever made, and they hug and smile and move on.

However, the relationship between the Dallas Cowboys and Parsons has deteriorated to the point that he has requested a trade. As a result, you have an All-Pro in his prime, at age 26, theoretically available. Again, the likely outcome is Dallas ponying up possibly $42 million a year to keep him, but until it does, it’s a chance for us to traffic in very entertaining scenarios, no matter how unlikely they might be. 

NFL teams trade huge ransoms to acquire quarterbacks all the time, but non-quarterbacks commanding multiple first-round picks? It’s a short list of late. The Seattle Seahawks gave up two first-rounders to get safety Jamal Adams from the New York Jets in 2020, and the Chicago Bears gave up two firsts (a little less with accompanying pick swaps) to get edge rusher Khalil Mack from the Raiders in 2018. Unless you’re trying to pull off a Jay Cutler joke, you have to go back to Ricky Williams (2002) and Keyshawn Johnson (2000) to find a non-quarterback drawing multiple first-round picks in a trade.

And one more caveat: not all first-round picks are valued the same. If the Philadelphia Eagles want to offer their next two firsts, you know you’re picking very late in the first round, wherein a team likely picking in the top 10 might have more currency in a single first-rounder. So to say “multiple first-rounders” is like saying you have two coins in your pocket, knowing they might be quarters, but also might be nickels.

But with Parsons, Cincinnati Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson and Washington Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin all in fractured states with their teams, it’s a fun time to ask a big hypothetical: Which current non-quarterbacks would command multiple first-round picks in a trade? Here’s the list we came up with, ranking the players from most likely to least likely to command multiple first-round picks in a potential move. 

1. Ja’Marr Chase, WR, Cincinnati Bengals

No, the Bengals aren’t trading Chase, or Joe Burrow, or any other key piece of a prolific passing offense. But if they did, the return would be incredible. Chase is still only 25 and coming off a Triple Crown season, leading the NFL with 127 catches for 1,708 yards and 17 touchdown receptions. Would he be as productive with another team? Probably not, but he’s a nightmare for defenses, and even at a standard-setting price of $40.25 million a year, he would be coveted as the rare playmaker he is.

2. Micah Parsons, edge, Dallas Cowboys

He’s only 26, so a team acquiring Parsons would, in theory, get the best years of his NFL career — give him four years and $170 million and he’s a free agent again at 30 in spring 2030, younger than T.J. Watt is today. Four Pro Bowls in four seasons, as well as 52.5 sacks. For all the public acrimony between him and Jerry Jones, the most likely outcome is him staying in Dallas. If Parsons stays healthy, he’s on pace to have the Cowboys’ career sack record (DeMarcus Ware has 117) by the end of that deal.

He’s 29 and hasn’t even gotten to the four-year, $160 million extension he signed through the 2030 season, so acquiring him means a significant investment in not only who he is now, but who he’ll be in three or four years. He’s been a first-team All-Pro selection in four of the last five years, with at least 14 sacks in each of the last four years. It seems wild to give up two first-rounders for the right to pay someone top-three non-QB money, but elite pass-rushers are rare enough a team would do it.

His 7,432 receiving yards are easily the most ever in a player’s first five seasons. At 26, Jefferson’s a year removed from signing a four-year, $140 million deal that already feels like good value. Minnesota is not about to trade him — and it once traded Randy Moss when he was 28 — but if it did, Jefferson would be right there with Chase as the most high-demand receivers a team could ask for. If there’s a gripe, it’s that he has only 40 touchdowns, which is the 30th-most in a player’s first five seasons.

Hear me out. With any of those top four, you’re not only giving up a package of picks, you’re paying top dollar for what you’re getting. With Verse, if the Rams were crazy enough to trade him, you get him insanely cheap on his rookie contract — basically $6 million for the next three years. That’s a cash and cap savings of, conservatively, $90 million. So, of course, teams will give up more in draft assets when there’s such a bargain on top of a disruptive pass rusher just beginning to emerge as a star.

It’s easy to only focus on the high-dollar positions like edge rusher, wide receiver and offensive tackle — the last time a player was worth two first-rounders, it was a safety, after all. But that speaks to how rarely teams part with the best players at the best positions, and Wirfs, 26, has been that for the Bucs, earning first-team All-Pro honors at right and left tackle. Until recently, he was the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history, but that wouldn’t stop a team from dealing away high picks for the steady, dominant play Wirfs has shown in five seasons in Tampa, helping the Bucs to a Super Bowl championship and four division titles.

Jacksonville gave up the No. 5 pick, another first-rounder and a second to move up for Hunter, then gave him a $31 million signing bonus, so there is no reality where they’d trade him before he played a snap. We could stipulate “no rookies” in this list, yes, but we haven’t. Let’s say Hunter, as a rare two-way star, is upset with how the Jaguars intend to use him — he isn’t — and let’s say it became irreconcilable. Of course, with Jacksonville on the hook for two-thirds of his rookie contract already, you could argue he’s worth three first-rounders. It’s a fictional scenario that won’t happen, but we’ll throw it in here just to imagine what a deal could be.

Back to the high-paid elites, and Surtain is 25 and the reigning AP Defensive Player of the Year. He’s played four seasons in Denver and has three Pro Bowls along with two first-team All-Pro nods. His four-year, $96 million contract is a bargain compared to the ballooning receiver deals. He’s the best player at his position for 60% of the cost of the guy he’s shutting down on Sundays. If he were truly available, teams wouldn’t hesitate to overpay to add a shutdown corner entering his best years.

We could point to other under-30 pass rushers like Maxx Crosby, Aidan Hutchinson or Nick Bosa, but they’re all very well-paid, or in the case of Hutchinson, soon to be well-paid. So we’ll go back to the impossibly cheap guy only halfway through his rookie deal. Anderson is 23 and will make all of $9.5 million over the next two years (with a fifth-year option after that). He went from seven sacks as a rookie to 11 last season. Houston gave up two first-rounders and then some to get him, so it’s not trading him anytime soon, but if it did, it’d get a haul back for him.

We could go with another young elite offensive tackle like Detroit’s Penei Sewell, but we’ll let another key position be represented on the list here. Lawrence, 27, had a career-best nine sacks last year despite missing five games with injury. He’s made the Pro Bowl in each of the last three years, and while he’s making $22 million a year. That’s still $10 million less than what Kansas City Chiefs star Chris Jones makes, so a team could get him for three more years of high-level play and he’s barely 30 when the deal is up.

Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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