What would two first round picks for Jalen Ramsey really look like?

I went back through the last several drafts to answer this question: “Who are we really talking about trading away in exchange for Jalen Ramsey?”

As rumors swirl around an imminent trade for Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey, the Kansas City Chiefs are often implicated as a trade partner. Filling one of the most glaring team needs with an All Pro sounds great to many, but at what cost?

If the Chiefs are able to swing a deal for Ramsey, they will infuse an outstanding cover corner and be able to pair him with Bashaud Breeland to form a very strong group of defensive backs along with safeties Tyrann Mathieu and Juan Thornhill. Ramsey is also an excellent tackler and would boost the Chiefs’ run defense as well.

Acquiring a player of this caliber will greatly affect a team’s salary cap, as most teams will probably want to seek out a new contract with Ramsey’s agent to go in tandem with the trade. It will also impact a team’s locker room to suddenly add an All Pro, but in this instance there are negatives to weigh as well as the positives.

Team chemistry and salary cap aside, there is a third component to making a decision like this, and that is compensation. That’s what we’re going to unpack here. Almost every team in the league has reportedly expressed some level of interest in Ramsey. Jacksonville is asking for two first round picks for the fourth-year corner, who will turn 25 years old in October. That is a steep price to pay, at a glance; but we decided to take another look at it.

Sure, it’s easy to look at the words, “first round draft pick,” as a hot commodity in the NFL. And they are a great asset, I mean who wouldn’t want to add young talent to their team?

A secondary benefit, however, is that when you draft a player in the first round, you can keep him under his rookie contract for four years, with a team option for a fifth year. It seems like a stretch to deal away not one, but two premium draft picks away in exchange for one player who will command a massive contract against your salary cap (especially with another upcoming contract extension on the offensive side of the ball that is expected to shatter all financial records in existence).

But I wanted to see what these picks really look like when you put a name to them. Based on all fair expectations, it is fully within reason to suggest that Kansas City will reach the AFC Championship Game with the addition of Ramsey. Without knowing any team’s draft slot until season’s end, we are going to project that Kansas City will select somewhere between picks 29 and 32.

At that point the Chiefs would probably have a few options to consider, and for this exercise, we want to know three or four names that they might typically choose from. So I went back through the last several drafts to answer this question: “Who are we really talking about trading away in exchange for Jalen Ramsey?”