DawgTalkers.net Forums The Archives 2021 NFL Season 2021 NFL Draft Trade out of the first round?

This assumes you know that the player you are picking will be good. It also assumes that the player that is picked will be good in their first year. Neither of those are good assumptions. We are picking 26th, not in the top ten. The likelihood that we pick a quality player at 26 is significantly than we are used to.

The thing is NFL teams invest a great deal of resources and money into scouting, analytics and breaking down every detail of the draft and the players.

While you have a point that no team "knows" a player they draft will turn out to be great, one would think that with the huge investment a team puts into the draft process, they would trust their evaluations. To do otherwise would by a gigantic waste of investment.

Obviously. But a smart team will know that even when they are picking a player that they like there is still a pretty good chance that player will turn out to be bad. This is especially true picking later in the first round.

If a team is in love with a player who is available and feel very confident that that player will be a contributor on an above average level then they should probably take him. I would question any team that feels that way about a player that is available at pick 26.

I wouldn't. I mean there are so many variables involved here that it could go either way given the situation. Depending on their board I could see a scenario where your evaluation of the outcome is certainly a possibility and would make perfect sense. I could also see a scenario where their board would dictate you draft the player you have slotted there. I just don't think that it's as simple as a one size fits all answer to this situation because we have no idea what their big board looks, how they have these players evaluated or even who will be available when our pick comes up.

Why the Browns should trade back

Here's a good article that backs up what cfrs is saying. Teams that overestimate their ability to draft good players are the ones that usually fail.

It is also true that teams picking late also know if trading back in to the 2nd round will net them a player of similar value PLUS the value of additional picks. Add in that in this COVID year, the scouting might not be as complete as in prior years making it wise to maybe push this pick back in to next year when we might have a more complete picture of the prospects.

I like how he led the piece needing to tell readers he was on a call with Daniel Jeremiah before calling another writer back. As to try and establish some sort of importance.

That said, it is a good article.

At some point though...you HAVE to draft players...and my confidence in the FO is very, very high. We were in a position for quite some time that necessitated the trade-back/out strategy. It was a frustrating part of the plan...but was completely necessary...we weren't yet a winning team and were only mildly competitive.

I think the FO and the "status" of the team and roster allow for us to really do anything available. Trade up...trade down...trade out...I'd bet the FO is looking at all of those options....as well they should...because that is where we are now.

I'm good with the article - other than taking a 3rd Rd QB and that after trading out of #26...I would add though that worse than "thinking you are good at drafting" is "making the draft decision before the draft begins to play out". This FO is locked in on their plan/process...but I doubt they have ANY pre-conceived notions on what will happen throughout the draft or what they are CERTAIN to do.

Amen. And that's the bottom line. Trade up, trade down, doesn't matter if you can't identify talent.

There is a time and a place, and I have more confidence in this FO than any other in recent memory.

I read this recently... Larry Holder from The Athletic used Pro Football Reference’s “weighted approximate value” to identify what were actually the BPA in any given draft slot since 1967. Here are the teams that actually achieved what they set out to do -- draft the best player available, and the frequency at which they accomplished the goal. Reading down the list, you can see how identifying talent has reflected on their success.


Steelers
12
Colts
10
Patriots
10
Cowboys
10
Ravens
9
Raiders
9
Packers
8
Dolphins
8
Vikings
7
Bears
6
49ers
6
Saints
6
Chiefs
6
Bengals
5
Eagles
5
Broncos
5
Washington
5
Rams
5
Falcons
4
Browns
4
Jets
4
Oilers/Titans
4
Seahawks
4
Chargers
3
Panthers
3
Bills
2
Cardinals
2
Giants
2
Lions
2
Texans
2
Buccaneers
1

BTW... The Ravens were judged as their own franchise, only tracked since "the move". Gives you an idea of how well they have drafted given their relative short history compared to other teams since 1967.

We have been drafting players. When was the last time we didn't draft enough players? We have 9 picks this year. Clearly we don't need 9 new players drafted to cut them.

Sure, if it makes sense to trade up and use picks there, do it. If it makes sense to trade back and pick up extra for next year, do that.

Just understand that the 1st round picks gives us the best value in doing so, especially if we don't trade back very far. I wouldn't want to trade back to deep in the 2nd round....maybe stay top 10.

Use both 3rd rounders to move in to the 2nd round. Maybe use 1 to go back to next year...same with the 4th round to move in to the 3rd.

Lot's of options possible. I want the same options available next year. It's a smart strategy to bank some extra picks.

To me, the only time when a trade down is a "no-brainer" is when you are high on the board, have lots of holes to fill, and someone offers you the sun, moon and stars to trade out.

There is simply not the same value (historically) when you are at 26. So now, trading down has to work hand in hand with the talent you have identified on your board. Are there still "can't miss" players on the board? Maybe, but can't miss goes hand in hand with your (or your trading partner's) needs, "elite" players are usually gone by then.

These trades, late in the first, seem to only happen when a team has a blatant need and a player that fits that need has taken a big slide down the board. Or sadly (see JFF), a team seems to think there is great value because the consensus is that a player should have been taken higher.

With the position the Browns are in, extra picks, a great chance at longevity in competing, we should probably be doing both. No, we're not drafting nine players. Keeping extra picks in your arsenal from year to year gives you great flexibility to "wiggle around" and nail down players you have identified. Simple math tells you that doesn't come to pass without doing both. Maintaining that flexibility is one of the unsung rules to staying "loaded" when constantly fielding a competitive team that drafts late. Just ask BB, who constantly trades down in the first and beyond.

You move up when you have to, you move back when you're sure that player will still be available, or you consider comparable players will be available, i.e... you don't consider that particular player you have targeted a can't miss and value additional assets more than the roll of the dice.

In my opinion, the Browns will move up at least once and move down at least once, to recoup the extra draft asset. At 26? I would consider a trade down to be a much greater possibility than a trade up.

I know I'd DEFINITELY be tempted to trade down with a team that's both

1. Offering a future 1st rounder
2. I'm pretty sure is going to be bad the year prior to that traded pick

Our roster is in good enough shape that we don't need to trade down. We have too many picks now with nine. We should be trading up if anything.

While I'm not advocating for trading out of the first round, there is a wisdom to deferring draft capitol to the future when more thorough draft prep is again possible. Having multiple picks in the first 2 rounds increases the odds of getting good value. (Like 2018 when we had 4 of the top 35 picks and scored with 3 of the 4.)

Interesting article from last year...

Trading Down with First-Round Picks Is a Path to NFL-Title Contention

By JON HARTLEY
April 23, 2020 5:36 PM

Patient general managers willing to exploit other teams’ lust for a quick fix can build pro-football dynasties.

As the 2020 NFL Draft gets underway tonight, many teams will likely be scrambling to make trades involving draft picks.

Egregious mistakes have happened during past drafts. In the first round of the 1982 draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, holding the 17th pick, accidentally submitted two names over the telephone and ended up with guard Sean Farrell when the player they really wanted was defensive end Booker Reese. The Bucs then tried to make up for that mistake by trading their first-round pick in the next year’s draft, but instead they set themselves back further.

Almost 40 years later, Tampa Bay suddenly has reason to be excited again. The team has now acquired Tom Brady, arguably the greatest player of all time at the game’s most important position, and tight end Rob Gronkowski from the six-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.

One secret to the success of the Patriots’ dynasty is that its architect, Bill Belichick, is a master of the draft, and in particular of extracting value from other teams by trading down for more draft picks. Many NFL general managers have long overvalued first-round picks, giving up too much in future draft capital to acquire them, and Belichick has been all too happy to use that to his advantage. But he’s not the first to build a consistent title contender through shrewd drafting.

When Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys in 1989, the once-proud franchise was at its nadir. In the first two seasons after Jones bought the team and hired his old-time Arkansas teammate Jimmy Johnson as its head coach, the Cowboys went 1–15 and 7–9, failing to make the playoffs. But Jones had a secret weapon: His partner in the oil-exploration business, Mike McCoy, was hatching a scheme to turn the team around through draft-pick trades.

McCoy had asked his assistant to give him the list of all pure “pick-for-pick” trades from the past four NFL Drafts (1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990). One thing he noticed was that the relative value of picks in the draft order seemed to decay exponentially, with picks declining less in value the longer the draft went on. (For instance, the drop in value from the first pick to the 33rd pick is much larger than the drop in value from the 33rd pick to the 65th pick.) Here, McCoy realized a parallel with the oil business: The amount of oil produced by a given oil well also decays at a decelerating rate over time.

Intrigued, he set out to plot those four drafts’ worth of trades on semi-log graph paper, which is commonly used in the oil industry and allows one to transform a decelerating, non-linear trend into a linear one. Having plotted his data points, he traced a line across the entire draft order from the first pick to the last, in essence showing each pick’s relative worth. He then assigned a certain number of points to each pick in the draft order. He arbitrarily chose 2,400 for the first overall pick. The second overall pick would be worth 2,175 points, the sixth overall pick 1,300 points, the tenth overall pick 1,050 points, and so on. After a few iterations, a finalized version was produced, and this table of points became known as “the chart.”

It was just the weapon the Cowboys needed to get back on top.

The team Jones inherited was, as you might expect, bereft of talent. But it did have at least one valuable asset: Heisman Trophy–winning running back Herschel Walker. Johnson, eager to restock the team’s cupboard, shopped Walker around in 1989, eventually settling on a massive offer from the Minnesota Vikings. To this day, the Walker trade remains the largest in NFL history. It yielded the Cowboys a whopping eight draft picks before all was said and done, and was the genesis of a new dynasty.

Using McCoy’s chart, which would later become a template followed throughout the league but was at that point still unique to Dallas, the Cowboys got to work turning the picks from the Walker trade into even more value, fleecing teams that didn’t properly understand each pick’s worth. The results speak for themselves: The Cowboys went to the Super Bowl and won in 1993, 1994, and 1996 with Troy Aikman at quarterback, Emmitt Smith at running back, and Michael Irvin at wide receiver.

In 1996, after three Super Bowl wins, McCoy returned full-time to the energy industry and sold his minority stake in the Cowboys to Jones. Since then, “the chart” has become a standard tool in NFL front offices, and the advantage it once afforded the Cowboys has dissipated. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still market inefficiencies to be exploited in the draft.

Back in 2013, Nobel Prize–winning economist Richard Thaler and Wharton economist Cade Massey published a behavioral-economics paper in which they argued that teams were overvaluing first-round picks because of “present bias,” the desire to win immediately rather than building a team patiently over a longer time frame. A savvy NFL front office could exploit this bias by systematically trading higher-round picks for more picks further down in the draft order and present-year picks for higher-value picks in future years.

While some NFL teams with adept analytics departments such as the Cleveland Browns have caught on to this strategy in recent years, Bill Belichick has been employing it for much longer. He read a previous version of the Thaler and Massey paper in the early 2000s and used its insights to great effect. He has traded down with his first-round draft picks in seven of the 19 NFL drafts over his tenure, and the results speak for themselves: Not just those six Super Bowl wins, but 16 playoff appearances, 18 division titles, and ten conference championships. He’s not done yet, either: *He may well trade down with the 23rd overall pick tonight.

*He did trade down again last year.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/nfl-draft-trading-down-with-first-round-picks-smart-move/

And we will need cheaper contracts on the books because our good players will be expensive.

Isn’t this an argument for trading down or out of the first round?

No, Its for trading up for a couple of good players.Not trading back for more cannon foder.

How do you know they are going to be good players?

You don't "know" but statistics tell us that the odds of a first round pick succeeding is greater than any other round.

Unless you are trading up into the top six those odds aren’t good (and even if you are the likelihood of a second contract isn’t great).

Statistics tell us that the draft is a crapshoot. It’s basically random. No one knows anything. Knowing that, having more picks is better.

And yet first round picks actually do better according to statistics.

High first round picks. And even then you are dealing with something like a 60% hit rate.

True, but I also don't think anyone is promoting we trade back to the end of the 2nd round.

If we trade down out of round one and trade up some of the 3rd and 4th rounders, we could end up with three 2nd round picks, a 3rd, and a prime pick for next year. I know some people don't like to think about next year, but I know you know our FO does.

JMO is that we probably won't be able to draft a player at #26 who is going to step in and start.

If that player is there, take him. I am not saying we have to trade back. I am simply saying it fits the front office M.O. and makes some sense if there isn't a guy there that knocks our socks off or is a player we figure we can get several plcks later.

This, right here!!!

I know you haven't done it, but some people seem to neglect the fact that a player we rank very highly may fall to #22. At that point we could move up a few slots to grab someone they feel is head and shoulders better than anyone else on the board.

My point is there is no steadfast rule to how this will or should work nor should there be. Every situation and draft falls differently and the FO will act accordingly.

I thought Joe Burrow was going first again!?!?!?!?

Throw, is that you?

Or, if the FO has determined players in this draft where you are picking are a poor investment especially for that draft position, you defer choices this year for future picks in a better round.

Especially if you have contracts that will either need extended at higher salaries or current players who leave as FAs whose contracts will expire and that player will need replaced.

While it is true you don't need to draft 9 players, no reason you can't do what we have done in the past, trade a 4th this year for a third next or 3rd this year for 2nd next.

Drafting late in each round makes it very hard for fans when we have no idea what the Browns draft board looks like or what the FO feels the biggest needs are. I would not be surprised at all if we stay at 26 and our selection is one of the following positions, a CB, Edge, LB or WR. We have a lot of options but in my opinion the CB position has the most unknowns/variables.

Based on writing styles alone, this is hilarious. One is notable for his brevity, the other for rambling.

Yea, even Pit beats Throw but that's not saying much.

Some may think it means, whatever it means, but I want to highlight what some lines of thinking may not want to admit.

The Browns Won two games last year, (almost solely) on runs carried by D'Ernest Johnson. .. at the end.

(And another one on a catch by Donavan Peoples-Jones for that matter.) Bengals #2.

so just because it's not the top 11 to start, well
everything matters, the point is everything matters.

Who does PitDAWG suggest is the one player in this draft that may fall to 22 but won't be there at 26?
Is it trading up for a non quarterback?

At some point though...you HAVE to draft players.
I love that!



My confidence in the Browns front office is very suspect right now, well,
think, - The Browns roster today, is very good right now.

The FO could really mess things up! if they screw up!

If They screw up, and nothing much is around to start with, then they didn't harm much.

But if you screw up the final brush strokes of a masterpiece, then it's like the last jenga piece, it all falls over.

The Browns Front office has a Lot to prove right now.
They haven't won a division title in 500 years, (1989,86)
They haven't won a Super Bowl ever.
They haven't won a championship since 1966
They havent' won two post season games since whenever.

But they did win a post season game last year.
I just never want a front office feeling too in love with itself, going into the beginning of a draft.

And I love football players, added to the team.
I couldn't imagine being a football fan, who hates players.

Another thing.
I think the Browns are Set at 3rd Cb,
I hold high opinions of MJ Stewart, and Brian Allen, and wish they would re sign Andrew Sendejo,
And I really like Ronnie Harrison.

If they do draft a WR under the size of big strong can help out in blocking situaitons, he better be one who can undoubtedly stretch the field with speed and quickness.
Beyond normal speed, Beyond normal quickness.

"Current needs are not future needs" Andrew Berry.

J/c

Baker and Ward's 5th year are why we shouldn't trade out of the first round.

The likelihood that we pick a player at 26 and he makes it to the point where we would want to pick up his option is very low. On top of that the fifth year option is now fully guaranteed which makes it a smidge less appealing.