Success rate in Trading Up

It's probably no different than if you picked at your own spot, there are obviously going to be good ones and bad ones

 

I started to do this analysis the other day when the Jets traded up to get Revis and finally abandoned it due to not enough readily available information.

The preliminary research though suggested that the teams trading up are generally worse off by quite a bit than the teams that traded down in those deals.

There were a bunch of flip-flop reversals in which good teams traded up and then collapsed while the bad team they traded up with suddenly became much better based on the wealth of riches they got in the deal.

The complications in the analysis were huge though. San Diego has traded down twice in the last 6 drafts (Vick and Manning) and has become a dominant team by doing so while their partners (Atlanta and the Giants) have declined a bit in the process.

The Jets traded up twice in the last 6 drafts and declined a bit in the process while their trading partners (The Steelers and the Bears) have both been to Super Bowls in the interim.

I found nobody at all since 2000 who has traded up and come away clean. That's why teams generally do not trade up in the 1st round much and definitely not into the top 10.

I had issues assembling trade data for the latter half of the 1st rounds though so it became hard to put together a conclusive statement about trading up in the absence of so much data.

I will say based on what I saw that I expect the cumulative effects of the two trade-ups to be negative for the Jets long-term and I expect the Panthers to come out very well from the deal in the end.

That's based, again, on the readily available info.