First, I would like to preface this by saying that I liked the McKelvin pick.  This “fan post” is not intended to bash the front office.  This is something that I have thought about since the draft and have not had the time to write it up and post it until now.

The question is:  Could Buffalo have traded back and still have gotten McKelvin?

I think the answer may have been yes.  Buffalo picked at 11.  The teams that picked 12-14 were the Broncos, Panthers, and Bears.  None of those teams needed a CB.  It just wasn’t going to happen.  Neither did Detroit at 15 (the subsequently traded out of their pick w/ KC, see below). 

Arizona at 16 had a pressing need for CB and took my personal favorite (insert sarcasm here) DRC.  The Chiefs originally has the 17th pick and they traded up to 15 to grab o-lineman Brandon Albert.  The Chiefs actually vastly overpaid the Lions to move up those two spots by giving them a third AND a fifth.  Those two picks, along with the 17th overall pick actually adds up to about the value of the 11th overall selection, not the 15th.

So what do we know?

1.  We know that of the 6 teams picking between 12-17, four of them absolutely were not taking CBs in round 1, one desperately needed a CB and the other was targeting O-line.

2.  We know that the Bills did have a trade partner in KC and that they could have at least gotten an extra 3rd and 5th round pick out of the trade down.

So what don't we know?

1.  Whether McKelvin was the first CB on Arizona’s board.

2.  Who Buffalo’s second rated CB was (DRC?) and how much lower of a rating did he have as opposed to McKelvin

3.  Whether another team (like the Eagles) would have been tempted to trade past Buffalo at 17 if McKelvin started to fall into the mid-teens.

Since we don’t know the answer to these questions it’s hard to make a determination on whether the Bills should have traded down or not.  I am less risk-adverse that the current regime though, so I would have traded down and taken my chances.  At the very least the Bills would have gotten the second CB on their board.  They even had the option of grabbing their top rated WR (Devin Thomas presumably) at 17 if the CB they wanted was not there.