Gonzo's note: Since this FanPost has generated a lot of comments, I thought I'd bump it to the front page where it could get a little more notice. Hopefully we'll be doing this a little more frequently than we have been in the past, so keep the awesome FanPosts coming, folks!

This morning I podcasted PA's Feb 3rd Hr 3 on KFAN. Rick Spielman was on fielding some questions -- well, the questions he could answer, anyway -- and i found this to be pretty revealing.  Shortly after the 42min mark of the podcast, Spielman had this to say in response to a caller asking about any creative moves in absence of our 3rd rd pick:

“Yeah, again I think as you go into this draft -- and that’s what makes the process so exciting, especially on draft day because so many things happen behind the scenes -- and there’s no reason where potentially we can move out of #12 and move down a little bit later in a draft because we like maybe an offensive tackle in this draft, or we like a defensive lineman, or we like a corner or a safety coming out, and then swing back around to get that third round pick back, but also still get some very good players. 

What we’ll do is, as we go through this process and we get everything finalized, we actually put together a, almost like a book on what other teams, what we project them, that they’re going to do, what needs are they going to fill -- for example, if you’re going to move down from the 12th pick, and let’s say you still want to take a quarterback, for example; well, if there’s four teams that already have established quarterbacks that you know aren’t going to take a quarterback, you could potentially move down, pick up that pick, and still get your player.  But also there are risks to that, too, because if someone’s down further than that they could still make that jump ahead of you. 

So there’s a lot of mind games going on during that draft day, but there’s a lot of options, a lot of things that could potentially happen. But we’re hoping, and our goal is to try to get that 3rd rd pick some way, shape or form.”

It didn't sound as if he was playing within the confines of that particular scenario; rather, it sounded like that actually may be their plan on draft day.  What I find pretty intriguing is that he mentions 'four teams' in a trade-down scenario, which would indicate the scenario most people have been speculating on -- swapping with NE at #17 (and getting back our #74 in the 3rd).

Nothing huge, I guess.  Just thought it added a little more validity to the idea of trading down -- which some people seem to be vehemently against, for whatever reason.