The NFL has modernized in many ways, but its draft-day trades are not among the innovations. In 2020, some teams took advantage, particularly the Minnesota Vikings.
Decades after its creation, it seems that the famous Jimmy Johnson draft value chart is still the benchmark for most teams. Of all the pick-for-pick trades in the 2020 NFL draft, only one deviated from the chart by more than 50 points.
The issue is that the Johnson chart does not reflect the reality of expected production from draft picks. As others have done before, we created our own chart using Pro Football Reference's Approximate Value (AV). ESPN's sports analytics specialist, Brian Burke, ran a regression on the actual per-year AV for each draft slot over the first four years of a player's career to get an expected AV for each slot. The conclusion is the same as from similar analyses: Early picks are overvalued by the Johnson chart, and later picks are undervalued.
This is how teams such as the Vikings gain capital through trades generally along the lines of the Johnson chart. By recognizing the uncertainty in the draft, teams maximize their chances of success by trading early picks for more bites at the apple. The Johnson chart isn't always off the mark -- the Patriots and Ravens made a trade that was even by both the old chart and ours -- but it often is.
One small change for our chart since last year: We've added a replacement level worth the value of the last pick of the draft. In other words, instead of comparing the value of the expected production of each pick, we're measuring the marginal expected production of each pick over the last pick in the draft. After thinking about it, we realized that the former overvalued an accumulation of many late-round picks, which are barely worth more than undrafted free agents. The change didn't flip the direction of the surplus value in any trades in this draft, but it did lessen the degree of the surplus value in some instances.
Let's break down the five best pick-for-pick trades from draft weekend, along with a bonus deal that was offered but not completed. We'll rank them by how much extra value the winning team gained, compared to how much it gave up. For the sake of this exercise, we have assumed that 2021 picks will be in the middle of the round and, somewhat arbitrarily, deemed them worth 90% of the value of a 2020 selection.
1. Minnesota Vikings-San Francisco 49ers
The trade: 49ers got pick No. 25; Vikings got pick Nos. 31, 117 and 176
The value winner: Vikings
Surplus value: Late third-round pick
I'm confused by what the 49ers did in the first round. Jerry Jeudy or CeeDee Lamb would have been logical selections at No. 14 and would have filled a giant need at wide receiver. Instead, general manager John Lynch took defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw, a well-regarded prospect who plays a position considered to be less valuable than wideout and a position that is not as much of a need for this team.
Perhaps the argument against Jeudy or Lamb was that this was a deep receiving class, and strong talent could be found later. But that line of thinking went out the window when the 49ers squandered so much value to trade up to get Brandon Aiyuk. In dealing Nos. 31, 117 and 176 for No. 25, the 49ers actually spent more on Aiyuk than they did on Kinlaw.
To make it worse, at the time the trade was made, there was a 59% chance that Aiyuk was still going to be on the board at pick No. 31, according to ESPN's NFL Draft Predictor.
All of this seems like bad process by San Francisco. But the Vikings deserve credit, too. They were presented with an offer that moved them down six spots and paid them much more than those six spots are worth, and they took the deal.
Cumulatively, the Vikings' four pick-for-pick trades in this draft netted them surplus value worth a pick in the middle of the second round. That could be nudged in either direction a bit, depending on how one views picks for 2021 (we credited them as being worth 90% of a present pick), but regardless, the result is clear: Minnesota's process increased its expected output from the draft.
2. New England Patriots-Los Angeles Chargers
The trade: Chargers got pick No. 23; Patriots got pick Nos. 37 and 71
The value winner: Patriots
Surplus value: Fourth-round pick
You can win at the draft two ways: by being better than other teams at evaluating incoming talent or by amassing a higher volume of expected output. The Patriots have the self-awareness to recognize that they're more likely to achieve the latter than the former. Heck, the former might be impossible. Trades such as this from Bill Belichick are hardly new, so it wasn't surprising to see him deal out of the first round.
Of course, not every trade the Patriots made was a positive from a value perspective (more on that in a bit). From the Chargers' point of view, this is the kind of deal that we wouldn't criticize if it were for a quarterback; the position has so much more upside than others that you have to think of those trades in a different category. But for an inside linebacker? This was inadvisable, as great as Kenneth Murray could become.
3. Cleveland Browns-New Orleans Saints
The trade: Saints got pick Nos. 74 and 244; Browns got pick No. 88 and a 2021 third-round pick
The value winner: Browns
Surplus value: Fourth-round pick
Between this trade, another deal that I think of as a mini-Ricky Williams trade (when the Saints traded all of their remaining picks to move up from 130 to 105), and their Day 3 deal to trade back into the 2020 draft, New Orleans maintained its reputation for aggression in the draft. In sum, the three deals cost the Saints the equivalent of an early third-round pick in value.
That said, this is not as bad of a trade as the numbers make it seem in a vacuum. The player the Saints traded up for was linebacker Zack Baun, who was expected to go significantly earlier. There was a 42% chance that he'd go in the first round and a 98% chance that he'd be selected in the first two rounds. By trading up for him, the Saints overpaid for the 74th pick but didn't overpay as much for the player. This is a bit of a paradox; we're working under the assumption that the consensus view of Baun was much better than where he was selected. Yet if that were true, would he have lasted this long?
Ultimately, this is not a trade I would've made -- throwing away a third-rounder next year to move up 14 spots in the third round this year is an awfully steep price, even considering Baun -- but it isn't as inexcusable as, say, the Chargers' trade above.
4. New York Jets-Seattle Seahawks
The trade: Seahawks got pick No. 48; Jets got pick Nos. 59 and 101
The value winner: Jets
Surplus value: Fourth-round pick
To hammer home the point about surplus value, this trade would have been "fair" if the Jets had to include a pick from the middle of the fourth round back to the Seahawks. Seattle would have moved up 11 spots in the third, and the Jets would have moved up twice that or maybe a little more in the fourth. That would have made this roughly even. But the Jets didn't give up a fourth-rounder. That's where the value is.
Seattle moved up to No. 48 to take Darrell Taylor, who was 70th in Scouts Inc.'s rankings and 185th on Mel Kiper Jr.'s final big board. Meanwhile, the Jets not only locked up a free pick but also managed to nab wide receiver Denzel Mims even after moving down. That's good process and result for the Jets. Their fans ought to be encouraged by Joe Douglas' trades in his first draft as the team's GM, not only because of this deal but also because ...
5. New York Jets-New England Patriots
The trade: Patriots got pick No. 101; Jets got pick Nos. 125 and 129 and a 2021 sixth-round pick
The value winner: Jets
Surplus value: Fourth-round pick
Douglas made his in-division rival pay a premium to deal with him, and New England agreed to cough up extra value to the Jets.
I can sort of see why Belichick and Nick Caserio would make this trade. They entered the draft with 12 selections and made a deal for another by trading out of the first round. Although we preach trading down, there is a limit to that strategy. Trading down forever to accumulate 30 sixth- and seventh-rounders would not be wise and would result in a lot of sixth- and seventh-rounders being cut. As such, there's something to be said for using that capital to improve the selections you have if a team finds itself with a serious glut of picks.
But giving that free value to a divisional rival seems like an odd choice, and including a future pick seems like an odd choice. In the end, the Patriots paid a pretty hefty price for the right to select tight end Dalton Keene.
Bonus: A rejected offer between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars
A trade that would have been No. 1 on this list was offered during the draft, but it was turned down by the team that would have benefited. That proposed deal, as detailed by Peter King, would have been:
The trade: Buccaneers receive pick No. 9; Jaguars receive pick Nos. 14, 76 and 117
The value winner: Jaguars
Surplus value: Late second-round pick
Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell: What were you thinking in saying no to this? Jacksonville is possibly the furthest team in the league from a Super Bowl contender. Its only goals at this point should be:
Find a good quarterback.
Amass enough talent to become a Super Bowl contender if it accomplishes step one.
Cornerback CJ Henderson, whom Jacksonville took at No. 9, is unlikely to be the difference between checking off bullet No. 2 and not. And he is barely -- if at all -- more likely to be that than the player the Jaguars could have landed at No. 14. In fact, that very well could have been Henderson anyway.
This was a high-value gift from Bucs GM Jason Licht to Caldwell, and Caldwell turned it down. In turn, that bailed out Licht, who ended up having to surrender only a fourth-rounder (while getting a seventh back) for the eventual trade that landed his team Tristan Wirfs by moving up only one spot.