Last night I posted my theory that stated one of the reasons Spielman and the Vikings have been conservative in free agency and didn't really address the three biggest needs of the team (OL, DB, WR), was because it makes us unpredictable with the #3 pick, and makes the drafting of Kalil, Claiborne or Blackmon all viable 1st round picks for us. That gives us additional ammunition, should we want to trade down. In the post, I hypothesized that there might not be enough teams willing to move up to #3 to draft one of the top remaining guys. But, MarkSP18 called me out on that, and rightly so. I did a little research of the top 10 team needs (I assume the Vikings wouldn't want to trade down past the top 10) to see which of them might align with picks that could potentially be made at number 3 (Matt Kalil, Morris Claiborne, Trent Richardson or Justin Blackmon, Ryan Tannehill). I visited our neighboring SB Nation sites to see what the low-down is on other team's needs. Check out the options after the jump.

Biggest Needs by Team (listed in order), with links to relevant articles on our SB Nation neighbor sites.

Cleveland Brows: QB, WR, RB

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: MLB, CB, S, RB

St. Louis Rams: WR, RB, DT, LT

Jacksonville Jaguars: WR, DT, DE

Miami Dolphins: QB, OG, WR

Carolina Panthers: DT, DE, CB

Buffalo Bills: LT, WR, OLB, CBs

Based on this list, a case could be made that the following teams could potentially be interested in trading up to #3 to draft the following players (in order of interest):

Matt Kalil: Vikings, Bills, Rams
Morris Claiborne: Buccaneers, Vikings, Panthers, Bills
Trent Richardson: Rams, Browns
Justin Blackmon: Rams, Jaguars, Vikings, Bills, Browns, Dolphins
Ryan Tannehill: Browns, Dolphins

So, it's very possible that a team could be willing to trade up to #3 to draft any of these players. The real question is, do any of these teams consider these players worthy of trading up to get? Only time will tell, but it's certainly an interesting question to consider. So, maybe there is a method to Spielman's madness. He's been hyping up Morris Claiborne recently...perhaps a trade down is part of his rebuilding plan after all? Or maybe he's just seriously considering drafting Claiborne instead of Kalil. Or maybe...it's all just a smokescreen to distract people from the obvious pick of Matt Kalil.