It’s the last Monday in March, the NCAA Tournament has reached its Elite 8 (and my bracket was trashed in the first weekend, by the way, thanks to Loyola and Abilene Christian) and we are mere weeks away from the 2021 NFL Draft.
Normally, this would be a good time for a fresh mock draft, regardless. But now it gets even more interesting after three teams traded picks in the blink of an eye. To recap, the day was highlighted by the San Francisco 49ers moving up from No. 12 to No, 3 in a trade with the Miami Dolphins, also sending a first and a compensatory third in 2022 and a first in 2023 to Miami.
Miami then flipped the 12th pick along with No. 123 this year and their original first-round pick in 2022 to the Philadelphia Eagles for Nos. 6 and 156. So it’s now the 49ers at No. 3, the Dolphins at No. 6 and the Eagles at No. 12.
This is certainly good news for the Bengals. It’s now a near-forgone conclusion that the first three picks will all be quarterbacks: Trevor Lawrence to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Zach Wilson to the New York Jets and Justin Fields/Trey Lance/Mac Jones to the 49ers. That will push talent down to the Bengals at No. 5, should they choose to stay there. Cincinnati is also still a fairly prime candidate to send the pick to another team looking to come up for a quarterback (Detroit? Carolina? Denver? New England?)
The Bengals’ options seem even more wide-open now than they were before the draft. So let’s not waste any more time and get to the picks for this latest mock draft, courtesy of the Mock Draft Machine at The Draft Network and using their Predictive Board.