The Province

Is Buffalo’s tradeup to No. 12 the first of two?

- JOHN KRYK

The Buffalo Bills jumped up nine spots in the first round of next month’s NFL draft, after Monday’s trade agreement with the Cincinnati Bengals.

NFL trades cannot become official until Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The Bills have agreed to deal the first of their two late first-round picks, No. 21, to get the Bengals’ No. 12 choice. In so doing, the Bills will send to Cincinnati left tackle Cordy

Glenn, a starter since Buffalo selected him in the second round in 2012.

The Bills and Bengals also agreed to swap late-round picks, with Buffalo set to get Cincinnati’s fifth-rounder (No. 158) and the Bengals receiving the Bills’ sixth-rounder (No. 187).

Is it the first of two leapfrogs for the Bills, so as to land a phenom rookie QB in the top 10 of the draft, a la the Philadelph­ia Eagles two years ago to get Carson Wentz at No. 2?

We’ll see. But this puts the Bills in much better position to do so.

It’s easier to entice a team owning a top-five or top-10 selection to move down on Day 1 when it’d only be to 12th, not 21st.

Buffalo also owns the No. 22 pick in the first round.

The loss of Glenn isn’t exactly negligible. But because he has missed exactly half of the Bills’ regular-season games over the past two seasons, including 10 starts in 2017, they’ve all but moved on from him already.

Rookie Dion Dawkins proved an able, if not great, replacemen­t for Glenn at left tackle.

If Glenn has recovered from the troubling foot issues that sidelined him for so much of the past two seasons, he could prove a significan­t upgrade for a Bengals offensive line decimated in free agency last year.

BREES AVAILABLE?

Shockingly, the New Orleans Saints and iconic franchise quarterbac­k Drew

Brees had yet to agree on a contract extension by the end of Monday afternoon, six hours after the so-called twoday “legal tampering” period began.

That’s when other teams can get a head start on Wednesday’s kickoff to the free-agency signing period, by beginning negotiatio­ns with pending agents of soon-to-befree players.

Brees falls into that category, as his latest contract with the Saints is set to expire Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The Minnesota Vikings are one team that quickly reached out to Brees’ agent

Tom Condon early Monday afternoon, NFL Network’s Tom

Pelissero reported. “Everyone I have spoken to believes Drew Brees stays with the New Orleans Saints,” Pelissero said. “He doesn’t have a contract. Teams are able to reach out to him. The Vikings have done that to him today.”

Any QB-needy team with the cap space should be all over this, too.

That includes the Denver Broncos, New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins and Arizona Cardinals, for starters. Plus, any team not entirely sold on whatever “franchise” quarterbac­k it currently has.

If the Saints are engaging in a staring contest with Condon and Brees, they’d better blink fast — or risk losing Brees, and enraging the Big Easy.

SO SUH-N?

Miami reportedly was set tocutDT Ndamukong Suh, three years into a six-year, $114-million deal. NFL Network reported he already has pocketed the fully guaranteed portion of that deal — $60 million. The move still hits the Dolphins hard, with a reported $22.2-million cap hit.

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