All offseason, a segment of Detroit Lions’ fans have said “they won’t trade their first-round pick” because the 2024 draft is in Detroit. That’s a flimsy narrative, at best, and during his pre-draft press conference general manager Brad Holmes had the expected response. Essentially asking for forgiveness, not permission, if he trades out of the first round on April 25.

“If it makes sense and it lines up and it’s the right thing to do, then we have to do the right thing and so, say that happens, where the fans have been waiting there all night for this pick and we get an offer that we really can’t turn down, we’ve got to do the right thing. And hopefully our fans will forgive us. We won’t expect immediate forgiveness right then and there, but hopefully when the season starts and that player selected is out there, we can get past that. I totally understand that.”

There stand to be some teams who will look to move into the late first round, rooted in getting a coveted fifth-year option on a player (a quarterback?). Sitting at No. 29 overall, the Lions could be fielding a lot of calls late next Thursday night.

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com thinks two teams in particular could be looking to consolidate draft capital to move back into the first round.

I'll be pretty shocked if either Arizona or Washington (or frankly both) aren't moving some of their enormous stockpiles of draft capital and making a move back into the first. I understand AZ has two picks in one, but I think it's likely they package another pick and upgrade 27

— Lance Zierlein (@LanceZierlein) April 20, 2024

Past ties makes Cardinals and Commanders easy possible draft trade partners for the Lions

The Commanders and Cardinals being mentioned specifically by Zierlein is interesting on the draft trade front for the Lions.

Dave Sears is the Cardinals’ assistant general manager. Before that he was the Lions’ director of college scouting from 2019-2022. During last year’s draft, coincidentally or not after Sears was hired in Arizona, the Lions and Cardinals made two trades.

Lance Newmark spent 26 seasons in the player personnel department for the Lions before the Commanders hired him to be their assistant general manager this offseason. Most interestingly on the Washington angle, they have five picks between No. 36 and No. 100 overall. On at least one draft pick value chart, the “Rich Hill” version, picks 36 and 100 are equal to pick 29.

All the pre-draft speculation for this year will be over soon. But the Commanders and Cardinals, such as it even becomes a thing, look like the most ideal trade partners if Holmes is willing to move out of the first round and they want to move up.