SI’s Peter King projects trade between NFC East rivals for Marcus Mariota

Peter King of Sports Illustrated took a shot at forecasting the first 15 selections of the 2015 NFL Draft on Wednesday morning and projected a big trade that would land Marcus Mariota with the Philadelphia Eagles.

SB Nation's Dan Kadar predicted a similar trade last week, although Kadar guessed a trade could happen between the Tennessee Titans and Eagles for the No. 2 pick. King projected the trade to happen with Washington and the No. 5 pick.

While trades between divisional rivals are rare, particularly those involving a quarterback at stake, King defended the logic on Twitter by pointing to a trade in 2010 between the same two teams that sent 33-year-old Donovan McNabb to Washington in exchange for a second-round pick and a conditional mid-round pick. Still, it would represent a monumental shift away from typical draft logic if a team gift-wrapped a 21-year-old franchise quarterback prospect like Mariota to a division rival.

It's also far from a sure thing that Mariota will be on the board by the time the fifth overall selection rolls around. While Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston is the popular pick to be the No. 1 selection of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and was the pick for King, the Sports Illustrated columnist noted that "Mariota is absolutely not out of the picture" for the first pick.

The blockbuster trade for Mariota wasn't the only noteworthy projection by King, who also had Alabama's Amari Cooper as the second wide receiver off the board. Instead, he slated the Oakland Raiders to take West Virginia's Kevin White with the fourth pick and praised the receiver as the "latter-day version of Larry Fitzgerald." Cooper fell two more picks before getting scooped up by the New York Jets.