harvard nfl draft pick valuations

So if you were the #9 pick and traded down 20 spots, you would only get a late 3rd or an early 4th...? Really?

If you were the 32 pick and wanted to trade up to the #7 pick, it would only cost you a 2nd?

I dont like this at all. Its severely helps out teams that are looking to trade up (the teams that are already good) and extremely hurts teams that are trading down (teams that need more help in quality picks).

I dont think this would help the competitiveness of the NFL at all. No team would want to trade down. Essentially, if we wanted to trade up for Andrew Luck last year, we would only have to give up our 2nd and a 4th. lol. This is not realistic at all.

 

Nothing is absolute. If there's a marquee quarterback available at 1 or 2, obviously you have to give up more.

But I do think this is more accurate. I would have no problem trading down from 9 to 16, for example, and picking up a 3rd. This example would have us picking up a mid-5th rounder, which is a little low IMO, but this makes more sense than Jimmy Johnson's chart.

 

I would have thought that with the new slotting system for rookie's salaries that the higher picks would increase in value since they don't handcuff teams as much as they used to

 

By the numbers, the team with the first overall pick can trade their second, third, fourth, and seventh for the second overall pick. The super bowl winning team can trade their 2-7th picks for the second overall pick.
I don't think this should be used as a trade evaluation chart, but more as a chart to show how history worked out.

 

I'm of the same mind set. Higher picks have increased in value since the slotting system.

 

I think you're confusing trade value with expected performance at a given pick. I would argue this article failed to properly illustrate preferences given salary cap restraints i.e. rookie vs veteran contracts. Even for just pick-for-pick trades, this article fails to note that opportunity cost drives up trade value of high(est) picks.

 

The chart is an accurate reading of value when an average selector is making the pick.

Jimmy Johnson's chart, the standard at the moment, is an accurate reading when a great evaluator of talent is making the picks. If you're Bill Polian or Jimmy Johnson the 1 pick really is worth 3000 points. If you're an average selector it's worth much less, because you will not likely find the all-time great with that pick whereas the two guys above likely will.

In other words, Jimmy Johnson's chart is absolutely valid from the standpoint of Jimmy Johnson. For everybody else it is less and less valid until you get to the bad talent selectors who usually make the 1 pick and for them it is just a joke.

 

With the large salaries being taken out of the equation, the higher draft picks should be worth even more. No one wanted to pay out a top 6 contract. Now a top 6 contract is not a cap killer so if someone really wants to move up it comes with less risk.

 

The evidence though is that having a high pick isn't the huge advantage that we see it as for most people who will make the selection.

The study that Kevin Meers did showed that if you look at the actual value that comes out of each draft slot it's more of a straight line progression in terms of value than the current almost logarithmic scale that the Jimmy Johnson chart assumes.

Using Pro-Football-Reference's AV stat as a guideline he found that the 1st pick of the draft is worth about 494.6 units of value (not AV but based on the Jimmy Johnson chart analysis of a unit of value). The 1st pick of the 7th round is worth 43.5 units. So according to Meer's analysis when you look at the AV that people actually produce over their careers the 1st pick in the draft is worth 11.37 times the value of the 193 pick.

This isn't an opinion on his part, it's backed by the actual AV numbers that all the players selected between 1980 and 2005 produced over the course of their careers with the caveat that the guys picked in the early to mid 2000's aren't quite done yet.

So the Jimmy Johnson chart makes the 1 pick 200 times more valuable than the 1st pick of the 7th round but the actual analysis of careers suggest that it is more like 11 times more valuable.

That's good info for people to have when they're comparing trade values and considering trades. As sexy as a high pick looks the actual value in the pick is on the order of 10x greater than a low pick not 100's of times greater.

I'll also note here that The Patriots run in the early 2000's was with a low-paid QB taken in the 6th round. When Peyton Manning couldn't beat Tom Brady in the playoffs it wasn't because he was the lesser of the QB's. He was actually the greater of the two. But Tom Brady had better players playing with him because his effect on the Patriots cap was dwarfed by the overhead that Peyton cost the Colts.