Joe Burrow could shake the NFL Draft to its core in April

The Miami Dolphins want a quarterback and there are plenty in this year’s draft but top QB prospect Joe Burrow may dictate how the draft plays out early.

Joe Burrow is going to be the first quarterback taken in April’s NFL Draft. He may go number one overall or he may talk his way out of that first pick. At the Super Bowl this past weekend, Joe Burrow made his rounds with the media and some believe that his comments may be telling as to where he wants to go.

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com has commented that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross really wants Joe Burrow and recently he held firm to that belief when he too spoke to other media outlets. The problem is that Burrow is going to be taken number one overall but the question is by whom?

Burrow was asked about playing for the Bengals and his answers were not concrete. He didn’t say, “Yeah I hope they draft me”, or “I want to be a Bengal”. Instead, he said that he wants to play for a team that wants to win Super Bowls. Dan Patrick discussed this very thing on a recent episode of his show.

Eli Manning retired this off-season and a similar situation fell upon him at his draft. He refused to play for the San Diego Chargers and forced a trade with the Giants who took Philip Rivers at pick four. Could we be seeing the start of something similar here with Burrow? Does he want to be a Dolphins QB or is he hoping some other team will jump up and take him? When asked if being picked first was more important than being picked by the right team, Burrow said it was a bit of both.

With the NFL Draft still months away, there is going to be a lot of discussion about where and how Burrow could shake up the draft. For a team like the Bengals, they may want to move out of that number one spot if they believe Burrow won’t play for them, or at best not have a desire to play for them.

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This could drive down the compensation a bit for the number one spot if other teams believe that the Bengals will not risk taking Burrow. For example, if the Bengals opt to not draft Burrow would the take a flyer on another QB if a trade can’t be worked out or would they take Chase Young? How would that shape the first ten picks of the draft?

For starters, it could increase the value of a trade up to 2 or 3. More likely the Bengals would want to make a move out of the first spot. Dropping to five would make a lot of sense because they could still land a quarterback. There has been talk that Tua Tagovailoa also would rather not play for the Bengals but the Tagovailoa family has backed off that talk recently.

The Bengals can shape the early first round but Joe Burrow could as well and as the draft pulls closer, we could see a blockbuster trade being discussed. For the Dolphins, it might be a little too much to move up to number one, even for Joe Burrow. The Dolphins have three first-round draft picks this year and two next year but they would likely end up parting with three of those picks to move up, plus a second-rounder as well.

It is going to be expensive for any team to move up but it appears that maybe what could happen.