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2015 NFL Draft: Philadelphia Eagles Trade with Oakland Raiders for Marcus Mariota a Win-Win

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If you’re the Philadelphia Eagles, forget about trading all the way up to the first overall pick if you want Marcus Mariota. Much like George Costanza’s father felt before creating Festivus, surely there has to be a better way. For the Eagles there indeed is a better way, and that way involves the Oakland Raiders.

It would make sense all around for both parties. First off, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers reportedly seem smitten with Jameis Winston as their first overall pick and are not going to trade away the possibility of getting him. Not unless, of course, they get blown away with an astronomical package the Eagles certainly aren’t going to offer. The Tennessee Titans might want Mariota, but they seem to be okay with Zack Mettenberger starting and will want to take the promising defensive prospect Leonard Williams. The Jacksonville Jaguars certainly don’t need a quarterback, so they could go with the best player available.

Which takes us to the Raiders. They should be begging for the above scenario to play out that way, because the team is terrible. They don’t need just one prospect, but many. They finally have a franchise quarterback in Derek Carr and they need to surround him with legitimate talent — their offense scored the least amount of points last season. One player at No. 4, be it Amari Cooper or whoever else, isn’t going to make a blockbuster impact on the roster. They need to stock the cupboard across the board and they need more draft picks to do that.

Meanwhile, the Eagles would be  happy they don’t have to give up nearly as much to get Mariota as they would have with Tampa. It’ll still be a sizable cost but it’s better than what it could have been. The Washington Redskins may not be out of the quarterback hunt, so the Eagles could  jump over them and remove them from the equation. Also, the Raiders aren’t exactly a team that operates by the book. They let the Miami Dolphins trade up from No. 12 to No. 3 for Dion Jordan and only took a third-round pick in exchange for it. So there’s a chance the Eagles could get that pick for even less than I’m expecting.

It would work out too perfectly in the end: Oakland gets more picks to build their roster and Philadelphia gets the guy Chip Kelly can’t stop waxing poetic about.  The Redskins and New York Jets might be losing out, but the Eagles wouldn’t be losing any sleep at night — they’d have their new franchise quarterback running 90 plays a game around defenses. And Oakland would get extra picks and drop slightly below the middle of the first round, which is an area where there would still be quality players available they could use.

So keep an eye out during the draft — if the first three picks don’t include Mariota, you could see two teams pull off a trade and get exactly what each one wants in the process.  That is, of course, if the Eagles can overlook the 1980 Super Bowl loss and the Raiders can forgive them for the historic seven-touchdown massacre from Nick Foles.

Doug Green is a Featured Writer for www.RantSports.com covering the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL.  Follow him on Twitter @DGreenNFL. 

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