Aaron Rodgers, A.J. Brown and more curveballs that could shake up the NFL Draft

The NFL world is focused on the draft right now, as it should be. People are throwing mock drafts out left and right, and they’re basing their picks on the best players available, and also on the team’s needs. But the draft is still three weeks away, and a lot can still change. 

There are free agents out there who can still be signed or not signed, and there are guys who can be traded or not traded. Those are the kinds of things that change which positions teams need to target in the draft, and trades will just straight-up change the draft order. These are four moderately realistic hypothetical situations that could put some twists in the draft.

Aaron Rodgers moves on from Pittsburgh

It’s becoming a yearly tradition for Aaron Rodgers to try to make the offseason about himself by playing a ‘Will he? Won’t he?’ game with himself. Luckily, it’s much more toned down this year, and he’s not doing the Darkness Retreat thing that he did in 2023. 

The fact of the matter is that it’s April, the draft is three weeks away, and he hasn’t publicly told the Steelers if he’s going to play next year, let alone play for them. That’s objectively not chill at all.

We did get a tiny little bit of news about the situation during the owners meetings. At the weird breakfast press conference/media availability thing that the coaches do, Mike McCarthy said that he’s confident that Rodgers will come back, but “at the end of the day, it’s a personal decision. So I think we’re in a good space.”

On one hand, it’s easy to hear that and think it’s a non-answer… But if there’s a head coach out there (not named Nathaniel Hackett) who knows Rodgers best, it’d be McCarthy. If he says that he’s confident in Crazy Uncle Aaron’s personal decision, then you’ve got to believe him.

But that leads us to another new piece of information. 

ProFootballTalk said that there was a little scuttlebutt going around and that the Broncos might bring Rodgers in for a visit… Veeeeeerrrrryyy interesting.

Remember: Bo Nix jacked his ankle up in the divisional round of the playoffs. It sounds like he’s ahead of schedule, but if that schedule is 12 months of recovery, then he’s not going to be ready to roll come September. 

So let’s say one of two things happens: Mike McCarthy’s confidence is shoddy, or Aaron Rodgers signs with Denver… If that’s the case, then the Steelers are going to be in the market for a quarterback who can, at a minimum, compete with Will Howard for the starting job.

Pittsburgh has the 21st pick, the 53rd pick, and three third-round picks in the draft. That means they could either reach and draft Ty Simpson or Garrett Nussmeier in the first round, or potentially use some of those third-round picks to trade up in the second round to get either of them.

Regardless of what they do, a team suddenly needing to draft a starting-caliber quarterback less than three weeks before the draft is definitely a shake-up.

A Godfather trade for A.J. Brown

If the Eagles trade A.J. Brown before June 1, he’ll count as a $43-ish million dead cap hit (paying a player who doesn’t play for you). If they do it after June 1st, it’ll only count as a $16 million dead cap hit. That's a significant enough difference for Howie Roseman not to be in any kind of a rush.

Right now, it seems like the Eagles' only possible trade partner is the Patriots. We’ve all heard some rumors about the Rams being interested, but those have gone away for the moment.

According to The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue, it’s the Rams’ M.O. to change their mind on things like this. On the PHLY Eagles Podcast, she was asked about Los Angeles’ interest in A.J. Brown. 

"You know what’s interesting about the Rams is that they are known internally for going through a lot of circular dialogue," Rodrigue said. "They’ll game theory out scenarios, and they will talk through the ifs, and whens, and hows, and all of these things, and then they’ll sort of back off. And then they’ll be back in, and then they’ll be out, and then they’ll be in, and then they’ll be out. It’s really interesting because it’s almost like, depending on what day you talk to them, they’re either stronger in or stronger out.”

If what she’s saying is true, then we haven’t heard the last of the Rams' interest in A.J. Brown.

For the sake of making this interesting, let’s say the Rams don’t like that Puka Nacua keeps (allegedly) saying antisemitic things, and they want a new wide receiver who hasn't been accused of biting women. 

All of a sudden, that’s a more immediate bidding war for the most dominant X receiver in the NFL. As they say, “The pick of the brick goin’ up.”

The Rams’ only first-round pick is the one that they got from the Falcons: Pick 13. That seems steep, but barring a player-for-player trade, they would have to send that bad boy to Philadelphia. Howie Roseman’s not going to send one of the best players on his team to a competitive conference rival for a handful of nickels.

It’s going to take a massive trade package for the Eagles to justify needlessly taking a dead cap hit that is $27 million bigger than it could be… But the 13th overall pick is certainly big enough for the Eagles to take that hit.

Budda Baker: Not wrong, just early

Since the Cardinals drafted their safety, Budda Baker, in 2017, they’ve had an overall record of 54-94-1. That’s a winning percentage of 36.2. In those nine seasons, they have had a winning record exactly one time, and that was in 2021 when they went 11-6.

Despite that, Baker has been a Pro Bowler eight times (seven straight) and an All-Pro four times. To put it plainly, he deserves better. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the way you look at it), this is the fourth or fifth straight season where he’s a trade candidate. This year, it seems even more likely because they aren’t ready to compete and they could (read: should) be hoarding draft picks to rebuild. That matters for the draft because one of the strengths of this year’s class is at safety. 

Caleb Downs (Ohio State) is going to go very early in the draft because he’ll be the best player available. But there are a few championship-ready teams like the Bears, the Bills, and the Eagles that need safeties. They could go after guys like Dillon Thieneman (Oregon) and Emmanuel McNeil-Warren (Toledo) in the first or second round… But safety has been a really tough position for teams to grade in the draft.

It wouldn't be crazy for one of those teams to opt out of the rookie safety game and instead trade for a safety who has been nothing but consistently awesome for almost a decade. If that happens, it means that you're going to see one of the elite prospects slide. 

I would argue that elite players being available to teams who are picking later (read: better teams) is a pretty saucy shake-up.

A Jawaan Taylor gamble

In 2025, the Chiefs' former right tackle, Jawaan Taylor, had the eighth-most penalties in the NFL (10). In 2024, he had the second most (16). And in 2023, he had the most (20). If you can get past him being a potential penalty liability on every single play, he’s actually pretty good… and he’s a free agent right now.

The lynchpin in this potential curveball is whether or not the NFL and the Refs agree on a new CBA, and almost every report that you read says that they’re nowhere close on one. That means we’re heading toward a lockout for the officials, and just like the last time in 2012, we’ll have another season of bad/scab refs. You see where I’m going with this? 

If/when Taylor gets signed by a team, there are two ways his 2026 season can go: The replacement refs call even more penalties, and he blows his personal record of 20 out of the water…OR, they don’t call any penalties, and he has the best season of his career. 

If a team signs him, you have to imagine they’re thinking of single-season upside with the second scenario. Also, if a team signs him, it means that they’re not going to be in the market for one of the really good tackle prospects who could be available in the second half of the first-round and beyond.

Also, also, if a team signs Jawaan Taylor specifically because the refs might not call as many penalties on him, they are very dumb. 

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