There is nary a moment these days in which for some people it’s not draft season. The NFL has successfully turned its enterprise into a 365-day-a-year business, and rabid and avid fans, as well as experts, have taken the ball and run with it in doing the same for the draft.
We find people discussing the draft even here at all points of the regular season. Right now though the Cleveland Browns hold the first-overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft and that has understandably been quite a topic of conversation when you consider how much room for improvement they have—not to mention their penchant for making trades.
One person who is hoping that the Browns make a trade this year is potential first-overall pick Myles Garrett, who recently was featured in a video on ESPN in which he made a plea specifically to Jerry Jones and to the Dallas Cowboys to make a move and trade up for the spot and draft him.
“I’m speaking to you, Jerry”, he said. “Mr. [Jason] Garrett, make it happen. Dak Prescott leads our team right now. I need you to take Tony Romo, take a couple picks, and give them to Cleveland so you can pick me up. Please, I’d love to play in Dallas, just make it happen”.
It’s not all that often that a player with such a high profile makes a case for a specific team to draft him, and quite frankly, I can’t ever recall seeing a public plea to that team asking them to trade up for him. While it’s not going to hurt his draft stock or anything, it wouldn’t really be a good look should he not wind up with the Cowboys, which is exceedingly likely.
But the Cowboys have not been averse by any means to making trades, including in the first round. They were seriously contemplating making a trade up in order to draft Jalen Ramsey, the cornerback, last year, but once he went off the board they held on to their spot and took Ezekiel Elliott, who helped vault Dallas to the top seed in the NFC.
They have made trades in the past, and Romo does offer an interesting bait, should the situation arise, but the reality is that it is pretty unlikely Garrett will get his wish. It is more realistic that he ends up in Cleveland than he does in Dallas.
Even if he basically just tried to beg his way out of Cleveland. Garrett has also previously said that he doesn’t want to play in a cold-weather city, though he also said that he would give his best to whoever drafts him.
It’s understandable for a Texas native to want to fulfill a dream to play for the Cowboys. There are several Steelers on the current roster who grew up rooting for the team, after all. The public plea was certainly out of the ordinary, however, and perhaps a bit insulting to the Browns.
Update: Garrett earlier today came out to say that the plea was a joke, but the story has already gotten legs of its own.
