The Bills traded linebacker Reggie Ragland to the Chiefs for a 2019 fourth-round pick this week in a move that continues the trend of offseason moves that have stocked the cabinet with future draft picks.
Ragland was a second-round pick in 2016, but fell down the depth chart at middle linebacker ahead of the trade. On Tuesday, coach Sean McDermott said he thinks it is a good situation for all involved and praised the work Preston Brown has done to win the starting job at that spot.
McDermott also said it would be irresponsible for the team “not to have our eye on the long term and the bigger picture” while more generally discussing the team’s approach. One of the picks they’ve acquired this offseason came from the same team that picked up Ragland as the Chiefs dealt next year’s first-round pick to move up for quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Given that, McDermott was asked if the team considered whether Ragland would help the Chiefs win more games and hurt the return from the Mahomes trade.
“No, you’re right. That’s a fair question,” McDermott said, via the Buffalo News. “That’s always the, as you evaluate a trade and where you come out on a positive or negative side, that’s always part of the computation, so to speak. You look at that [and] you have to look at it from every different angle. We did that. We just, again, felt like it was right for us at this time and right for Reggie at the same time.”
One would imagine that they would have asked for a different return or made no deal at all if there was a strong belief that Ragland can be that kind of difference maker in the NFL. The Chiefs have made the playoffs the last two seasons and seemed likely to be drafting somewhere toward the back of the first round when the Bills made the first trade, so the computation probably wasn’t an overly complicated one.
