NFL Rumors: Chiefs-Jeremiyah Love smoke, potential AJ Brown trade smoke and more

Welcome to the silly season of the NFL Draft cycle, where — with less than two weeks to go until the football world descends on Pittsburgh — actual information-gathering has gone out the window and every team is mostly trying to play the board and each other in order to grab as much talent as possible.

That said, you should take everything you hear this time of year with a heaping helping of salt. Still, just because something might be spin doesn't mean there's not at least a grain of truth to it, and from the Chiefs still eying Jeremiyah Love to several teams looking to move up and down in the first round, the latest round of draft rumors contains some doozies.

Would the Chiefs scrap their plans if Jeremiyah Love falls to No. 9?

• Signing Kenneth Walker III seemed to take Kansas City out of the running at running back
• But despite plenty of defensive needs, the Chiefs are reportedly considering doubling down on big-play potential

It felt like we more or less had the Chiefs' first-round plan pegged: maybe a receiver if someone like Carnell Tate fell, but if not then some sort of defensive playmaker — ideally a corner after losing both Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson over the offseason. Of all the things this aging roster needed, the one spot they seemed to be set at was running back, where reigning Super Bowl Kenneth Walker III had just signed a major deal to provide some much-needed juice to what had become a plodding attack.

Never underestimate the power of a shiny new toy, though. According to NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah, Kansas City still has eyes for Jeremiyah Love — and if he drops to No. 9, "all bets are off".

Of course, it's impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of it is the sort of smoke that's commonplace this time of year. Personally, it feels hard to believe that the Chiefs would really pull the trigger here, no matter how much they like Love as a player; it seems more likely that this is designed to drum up a market for the running back's services and ensure he doesn't fall out of the top 10 entirely. Then again, we've been wrong about the draft before.

Howie Roseman is sick of AJ Brown trade rumors — but doesn't exactly shoot them down

• Understandably, Roseman is tired of getting asked the same question about his mercurial wideout
• But while he rolled his eyes at media members, he stopped short of actually putting the matter to rest

On the one hand, I do feel some empathy for Howie Roseman; he's among the more media-available executives in the NFL, behavior that should be encouraged leaguewide, and it has to be frustrating to have each and every one of those appearances defined by the exact same question about AJ Brown — questions that he's so far answered in the exact same way.

On the other hand, if you really wanted to put Brown's future to rest for good, this isn't the best way to go about it.

You can understand Roseman's frustration, but at the same time, changing the topic before tacking on a perfunctory "AJ Brown is an Eagle" at the end will only serve to give this story legs to and through draft weekend. If Philly really had no interest in moving its star wideout, presumably Roseman would give a far more definitive response. As it is, it sure sounds like he knows the score and is simply trying to survive April with his sanity intact.

After all, the situation between Brown and the Eagles feels untenable at this point, and the last thing the team wants is that drama derailing the transition to a new OC in Sean Mannion. Brown remains a very good player, but Roseman is quietly preparing his roster for life without him, and Philly could very much use the money it could save by moving on from him after June 1.

Giants, Titans and fully half the top 10 are looking to trade down

• In a draft light on top-end talent, teams with multiple needs are hoping to move back a few picks and amass extra capital
• For that plan to actually come togehter, though, someone has to be willing to trade up — and that's a trickier proposition

Given the lack of no-doubt difference-makers at the top of this draft (and no quarterbacks worth a top-15 pick outside Fernando Mendoza), it should come at no surprise that, according to Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, pretty much half of the top 10 is looking to trade back. Breer cites the Cardinals, Titans, Giants, Browns and Commanders — all of which are much more than one piece away from contention — as teams "already looking at trying to drop down", hoping to accumulate more draft capital while still winding up with a roughly equivalent player in a wide-open class.

In a perfect world, you can understand why this would be a dream scenario for a team like New York, who needs help everywhere and could still land a promising player like Spencer Fano. The problem is that, if you want to trade down, you also need another team to want to trade up. And the same factors that make trading down so enticing make trading up a hard sell — unless someone is really enamored with Jeremiyah Love, or a top defender like Rueben Bain Jr. starts to fall, why would that juice be worth the squeeze?

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