With the second round of the 2024 draft in the books I wanted to go and look at the seven trades that were made during the draft. For each trade I am evaluating the trade using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft chart. The chart which Brad and I created is based on past results of NFL drafts. These values are not going to be indicative of typical trade markets in the NFL but they do provide you the expected returns on each trade when you wind up with the average outcome.

For each trade we calculate points for each draft pick. I am valuing  a future pick as the last pick in that particular round, which is the worst possible scenario for a team receiving a future pick and best possible scenario for a team trading it away. The difference between these two is the implied cost of the trade. That cost can then be translated into a single draft pick.

The expected value added for a team is what that draft slot would project at if we translated the rookie performance into veteran contract value (i.e. a QB selected number 1 in the draft would expect to bring a team a value of $50.4M, essentially projecting as one of the top 5 players at the position). The value lost is what the picks the team traded away would be valued as. For the team trading up the value will be specific to the position they traded up for. For the team trading down it will be a blind trade since there is no guarantee on positional availability. The difference is how much was gained or lost by moving up rather than picking blind.

7. Chargers Select WR Ladd McConkey

Implied Cost: 68 points (Less than the last pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: ($2,545,065)

There was a trend in the 2^nd round today of teams making some very fair trades using more modern rather than traditional valuation methods and this was one of those deals. The Chargers moved up a few spots to grab a premium position that on average would produce an $11.1 million per year receiver and the odds are in favor of wide receivers in this round so it probably should be higher than that. The move up was basically a mid draft pick swap with the Patriots getting 110 for 137.

While the salary here skews in the favor of the Chargers that does not make this a bad trade for New England as he was not a player they valued. They pick up some higher upside with pick 110 and a little better contract at 37.

6. Chiefs Select OT Kingsley Suamataia

Implied Cost: 92 points (Less than the last pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $366,685

Is there a point to moving up one slot in the draft? Probably not, but it is human nature to fall in love with certain players and when the player is this close it is normal to want to ensure you get the player. If you are going to make that kind of trade this is the way to do it. So many teams would just throw in pick 173 and call it a day, but negotiating to get another late pick back is smart and limits the upside that is being sent to the other team. A very fair trade for the two teams involved.  

5. Eagles Select CB Cooper DeJean

Implied Cost: 54 points (Less than the last pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $500,690

Quite frankly I am not sure if we will see a fairer deal than this when discussing a jump of more than a few draft slots.  Philadelphia jumps 10 spots to get their targeted corner and basically swap 53 for 78 and 161 to jump to 152. A super fair trade that fits what both sides are looking for in a draft and even the values here work out perfectly even.

The one thing that I was seeing online in heavy praise of the trade was the fact that DeJean had a first round grade and therefore this is a steal. There is a reason players fall so using pre-draft grades is really not a reason for giving “bonus points” to a trade.

4. Falcons Select DT Ruke Orhorhoro

Implied Cost: 330 points (The 194^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: ($741,798)

This is an example of a trade where the position you select can mitigate the premium you pay. In this case the Falcons lost 330 points to the Cardinals, which is worth the same as the 194^th pick, but when we plug in the value of a defensive tackle instead of a blind position, the Falcons actually gain in the trade. That makes a solid deal for both sides. The Falcons did a good job of getting ahead of the defensive tackle run which may have leveraged them further in the trade market though it sounds as if the player they selected was not close to a unanimous choice at this point.

In any case this is a solid trade for the Falcons and for the Cardinals a good way to gain a high probability of starting pick by going from 186 to 79 and Arizona’s roster is so barren they need starters. A win-win for both teams here.

3. Saints Select CB Kool-Aid McKinstry

Implied Cost: 697 points (The 90^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $4,796,583

New Orleans gains very little by jumping four spots and just throws two picks to the Packers to do it. Compare this to what the Eagles or Chiefs did above. Those teams worked to find trade packages that worked by continuously going pick for pick and that keeps the upside of having all of those multiple picks in place for the team trading up. This is just the “let’s get it done” trade probably because panic set in when the Eagles moved up for DeJean. There is far too much variance in the draft to put all of your faith in a 2^nd round corner. This is a really solid trade for Green Bay who gets a few chances to land a contributor later in the draft.

2. Rams Select DT Braden Fiske

Implied Cost: 1,191 points (The 35^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $5,143,428

This came across like a complete panic move. Just a few picks earlier we saw the Falcons move up 8 spots for a negligible cost by using a pick swap, but here we get a jump of 13 and the Rams not only include 155 from this year, but a blind 2^nd round pick in 2025. I get the team wanted a defensive tackle and the run on defensive tackles probably spooked the Rams, but you just can not make this trade for the fourth interior defensive lineman taken in the 2^nd round. You have to at least get something back from Carolina in the trade to offset the cost of next year’s second rounder. Fiske will need to be a top 20 defensive tackle to justify the trade up and maybe he will be that but that is a low probability outcome.

In terms of value this was the 2^nd worst trade of the draft behind the Vikings trade in the first round for Dallas Turner. The only reason it is not the worst of the 2^nd round is because these same Panthers, who got a great deal here, completely flubbed the entire process a few picks later.

1. Panthers Select RB Jonathon Brooks

Implied Cost: 871 points (The 66^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $8,058,011

The Panthers went from landing one of the best possible trades in the 2^nd round to making one of the worst trades around ten minutes later. The team moves up six spots to select a running back coming off an ACL injury making this a double whammy. By using the high pick on a running back they actually have less value than a blind pick at 52 where they would select a position that is more productive in today’s NFL. They throw in picks 142 and 155 to get up there to boot, giving the Colts access to some players who have a chance to be very productive if they get lucky with one of the picks.

I get that the QB was bad last year and one of the cliches we fall back on is “he needs a running game” but that just isn’t true. What the Panthers need are players and they just gave two of them away for picking a player that they should not be picking in the first place and one who likely would have been there at 52. It is hard for a 2^nd round trade to have this kind of disparity in projected player impact with an $8 million gap between the projected value for a RB selected at 46 and all of these other picks. Brooks has to be a top five player to justify the trade and even then it is iffy since there are so many other important positions to select.

With the first round of the 2024 draft in the books I wanted to go and look at the five trades that were made during the draft. For each trade I am evaluating the trade using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft chart. The chart which Brad and I created is based on past results of NFL drafts. These values are not going to be indicative of typical trade markets in the NFL but they do provide you the expected returns on each trade when you wind up with the average outcome.

For each trade we calculate points for each draft pick. I am valuing  a future pick as the last pick in that particular round, which is the worst possible scenario for a team receiving a future pick and best possible scenario for a team trading it away. The difference between these two is the implied cost of the trade. That cost can then be translated into a single draft pick.

The expected value added for a team is what that draft slot would project at if we translated the rookie performance into veteran contract value (i.e. a QB selected number 1 in the draft would expect to bring a team a value of $50.4M, essentially projecting as one of the top 5 players at the position). The value lost is what the picks the team traded away would be valued as. For the team trading up the value will be specific to the position they traded up for. For the team trading down it will be a blind trade since there is no guarantee on positional availability. The difference is how much was gained or lost by moving up rather than picking blind.

5. Chiefs Select WR Xavier Worthy

Implied Cost: 161 points (Less then the last pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: ($2,168,388)

The Bills trading down was smart, but the Bills making this trade seemed like a team just desperate to trade back in the first round. This is a no brainer trade for the Chiefs. By moving up a few spots they only gave up 161 points, which virtually means they gave up nothing by engaging in a bunch of pick swaps through the draft. By using the pick on a wide receiver rather than having a blind pick the expected player value actually plays out in the Chiefs favor by over $2 million. That is extremely rare for a non-QB trade.

About the only argument for the Bills to have made this trade was to gain another pick in the top 100. That does give them a better chance at finding a starter than at 133 but its definitely a higher variance area.

4. Panthers Select WR Xavier Legette

Implied Cost: 162 points (Less then the last pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: ($2,618,302)

Despite the fact that the Panthers come out even further ahead in salary than the Chiefs I ranked this one a little lower since there was probably little question that the Panthers would have been able to select Legette at 33. Perhaps the Bills asking for so little in return made Carolina fear another team could move up, but the trade seemed to be framed more as gaining an additional season of contract control via the option and quite frankly that is not a worthwhile consideration at this point in the round.

Buffalo clearly wanted to drop out. If we look at the two trades they made this effectively gets them back their late 4^th they traded to the Chiefs and they save a little over $2.4 million in rookie salary by dropping from 32 to 33. From a financial perspective it is the smartest drop a team can make due to that. My assumption is Buffalo will be desperate to trade number 33 in round 2. Both of these Bills trades are really representative of how trades should work in the NFL but rarely do.

3. Lions Select CB Terrion Arnold

Implied Cost: 533 points (The 130^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $3,727,836

The hometown Lions made the move to grab the defender they wanted and wound up giving up 533 points to do it, giving up a very valuable pick in the top of the 3^rd round. The value of that 3^rd round pick really moves the needle in Dallas’ favor as they would be projected to select a player who would be worth $5.5 million a season.

My guess is the reason the Lions leaned into this trade is because they viewed the 3^rd rounder as a bonus pick since it came via trade with the Vikings from the TJ Hockenson trade a few years back. Corners are harder to find as the draft goes on but when we are talking the 24^th pick I am not sure it holds that much weight. The fact that Dallas used the pick on a tackle only made this more valuable for the Cowboys, dropping down a few spots to likely get the same position they had targeted at 24 and adding the 73^rd pick in the process. If we factor in tackle versus a blind pick the move shifts to $4.4 million in the Cowboys favor.

2. Vikings Select QB J.J. McCarthy

Implied Cost: 619 points (The 109^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: ($14,440,847)

Probably the most interesting trade of the first day. This was essentially a game of chicken between the Vikings and the Jets. The Jets had to convey to Minnesota that there was another team involved to make them move up one spot to grab the QB they wanted. The teams in this case were the Broncos and Raiders. Clearly the Broncos and Raiders were not offering a 3^rd round pick along with their 1^st rounder because the Jets weren’t getting anywhere near the Vikings 3^rd rounder in this trade. From there you start looking at what they will and won’t take to drop down and these picks the Vikings gave up are ones the Raiders and Broncos could have beaten. The fact they did not tells me there was no market which works against the Vikings doing this trade.

On the other hand, this is a deep discount for trading up for a QB especially if you feel that there is a big drop from McCarthy to Nix. The most comparable recent trade up in this spot would have been the Bears going from 20 to 11 to get Justin Fields rather than having to settle for trying to get Mac Jones at a cheaper price. In that trade the Bears gave up the 20th pick, a future 1, a future 4, and a 5^th round pick to jump 9 spots. That is a clear QB premium trade and was essentially like giving up the 5^th overall pick to move up. It was made worse by the fact that the future pick they lost was the 7^th overall pick rather than a late 1^st round selection. So, in terms of who settled for less it was the Jets which is a benefit for the Vikings.

Overall, I think this is a win-win for both sides.  I think the premium of a 109^th pick is small potatoes to ensure that they did not get a last minute change of heart by the Broncos or Raiders. For the Jets they got bonus picks for selecting the same player they would have taken at 10. This is how trades should work in the NFL where the team moving up works hard to make sure they do not overpay the way the Bears did for a player who did not even make it to the fourth year with the team. The team moving down doesn’t really have other options because standing pat at 10 on “principle” is just dumb. Do what is in the best interest of your team and that is what both teams did here.

1. Vikings Select EDGE Dallas Turner

Implied Cost: 1,470 points (The 20^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $5,557,739

An absolute great trade for the Jaguars and complete head scratcher for the Vikings. The Vikings gave up in this specific trade (more on that in a minute) the equivalent of the 20^th pick in the draft to move up 6 spots to take the 17^th best player in the draft. That is absurd. Even if you want to factor in a few extra QBs taken than anticipated it is still the 14^th or 15^th best player. EDGE’s taken in this range in the post 2011 draft era include Will McDonald, Jaelan Phillips, maybe Zaven Collins (he was a pure tweener guy), Brian Burns, Marcus Davenport, Derek Barnett, Bruce Irvin (similar to Collins as a tweener), Quinton Coples, Ryan Kerrigan, and Robert Quinn. There are some good players there and some bad ones. Certainly nothing that screams it is a home run selection.

The trade itself gets even worse when you realize how the Vikings even got the 23^rd pick to make this trade in the first place. The Vikings did a wild blind trade with the Texans in March to get to 23 and in return gave up the 42nd pick, a future 2^nd, and the 188^th pick in the draft. They also received the 232^nd pick in the draft. Here is how the chart now looks if we substitute those picks for number 23.

Implied Cost: 2,163 points (The 5^th pick in the draft)

Potential Salary Lost: $10,190,858

I just don’t get any of the logic in any of this. The only reason to have done that first trade was to find a way to move up for a top 3 QB, which seemed like a longshot at best. The team traded a future  2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th rounder along with this years 2^nd , 5^th and 6^th to get the 17^th best player in the draft? This is now a no margin for error kind of trade. Turner has to be a major star, along the lines of a Burns or Josh Allen type of player, to justify what they gave up. Moving all of those pieces for one player rarely works out for a team, so the Vikings must really trust their process when it comes to identifying defensive talent to do this deal.

For those who are premium subscribers I put together a pdf file breaking down the contract results of the draft from 2011 to 2019 looking at results by round for each position, the best and worst performing teams, and who has taken the best approach to the draft the last few years. You can find the file under the “position reports” link in the “rosters” tab on the menu. Here is a brief preview of the report:

With the NFL Draft about to take place I thought we would do a new study using contract data to look at different ways to view the success and failures of drafting. To help do this I went back and looked at every draft from 2011 to 2019 and determined how much was spent on a per year basis on a rookie contract and how much was committed to a player on a post rookie contract. The ratio of 2^nd to rookie contract value should give us an idea as to general expectations in each round as well as how much value teams receive by landing these low cost rookies who are generally underpaid in every year of their contract with the exception of the first year.

Overall Draft By Round

The results by round tell us a few things. First it is very clear that the general ranking of players in the NFL draft is pretty good. 1^st rounders earned much more as a group than 2^nd rounders who earned more than 3^rd rounders and so on.

However, the total salary investment in round 1 is also very high relative to the other rounds which gives the round that many consider the “safest” in the draft, a high risk relative to the initial investment in the rookie contract. The 1^st rounders salary is 2.83 times that of the rookie contract, which actually lags all but the last two rounds in “value”. You are paying up for that big potential even though rookie wages are depressed….

Every year as the draft approaches I like to look at different trends over the last five years to see how teams can better utiltize the draft and free agency to build their football team by taking a bit of a more data based approach to player availability and success.

The first thing I did was go back to 2020 and look at the top 20 contracts at every position in the NFL. I then determined of those top 20 players how many of those players were available in free agency when they signed their most recent contract. This can give us a strong indication of good veteran players who a team can “buy” to become a starter.

The second thing is to look at the contractual benefit that exists if we hit on a player in the draft. To do this I looked at what the 16^th pick in the NFL draft will cost (about $4 million a year) and what annual savings that would provide over the 10^th highest paid player at each position in 2024. Here are the results:

The positions in the bottom right quadrant are the positions that teams really should be focusing in the top rounds of the draft. These are positions with poor free agent availability along with massive contractual savings if the player hits. Those contractual savings are not just important for being able to “buy” players but they also give a safety factor to each pick.

For example a $4 million EDGE would be around the 59^th highest paid EDGE in the NFL. That means that to justify his salary all he has to be is a situational type player. While that may be a disappointing outcome for a 1^st round pick, the fact will be that the team is not losing money and/or cap room in the process. A linebacker, in comparison, would rank around 33^rd meaning you need a borderline starter to justify the salary. Tight end would be 25^th so that player has to be a starting quality player.

For whatever reason I think we have a hard time grasping the concept that sometimes drafting the “best available player” based on traditional scounting grades does not always equal building the best 53 man roster. When we discuss tight end vs wide receiver for instance the draft decision has a major bearing on the overall quality of the roster. If I draft a tight end at $4 million a year my team is saving about $8 million a year in salary cap charges if he hits. With that $8 million the team can buy someone like Zay Jones, Hollywood Brown, or Robert Woods.

If I draft the wide receiver and he hits I will save about $19 million. With that $19 million I can purchase someone like a Dalton Schultz or Noah Fant and still have $9 million or so to spend to maybe sign someone like Andre James at center or Blake Cashman at linebacker. You get more access to talent by selecting the premium position even if that player doesn’t grade as highly.

The top left quadrant are the positions that probably should never be drafted in the first round as these are the positions where we have free agent availability and limited salary savings.  You can let someone else draft these players high and then sign them as free agents.

The two oddball positions are tight end and guard.  Tight end has shifted in the last few years in terms of availability. While salaries remain stagnant and there is no salary benefit to drafting a tight end, more and more teams are extending their tight ends which makes them harder to buy in free agency. I am not sure if this is a byproduct of the low cost of the position or the trend that went on for a few years where tight ends switch teams after mediocre rookie contract runs and then play above their rookie levels. I would lean toward the latter because that cost has not changed the way we approach positions like safety.

Guard salaries have exploded and are now on par with the tackles. So there is a salary cap benefit to selecting a guard, however teams are allowing the players to hit free agency even though the markets view them as top players at the position. Neither position should be taken in the first round, but there is at least an argument that can be made.

I think it is also worth pointing out the cornerback position. Stagnant salaries have moved the position out of the aboave average cap savings category and teams continue to let their corners leave in free agency. I do believe in most cases a corners best years are years two through four or five and that is the reason why team’s are not going out of their way to extend their draftees. That can make this a position worth drafting but knowing it is a short term not long term solution.

The other area that we need to look at when crafting a draft strategy is where do top players come from. For example if we look at QB it is pretty clear that drafting a player high is a risk you have to take. The average draft round in any given year for a top 20 paid QB is 1.8 and nearly 70% of the players are first round picks.

The round by round success is also a reason why you can justify devaluing the need to draft a wide receiver in the first round even though the original chart shows that selection as a better pick than an EDGE. Here is the receiver breakdown by round:

Now here is EDGE.

Basically by looking at past results we are bringing a 3rd dimension into the decision making process. We know that receiver is a position you have to draft due to lack of availability but it’s a position with talent in the first three rounds . EDGE has nearly 60% of the top players coming off the board in round 1 which is a reason to strongly weigh the pass rusher over the receiver in round 1 since we have seen so many very good receivers fall into the 2nd and 3rd rounds. .

At the other end of the spectrum are positions like center where the average draft round is 4.4 and we can find higher level players in most rounds.

The positions that are just a waste to select in any round are the special teams positions where the average draft rounds of a top player are around the 7^th round.

Here is the breakdown for the top 20 contracts looking at the average draft position and the breakdown by round of the draft from the last five seasons.

I think by putting it all together we can come up with some strategies as to where to focus in each round. For each position a green means a very good option for the round, yellow is one you can argue, and red means you should just avoid that position at that point.

As always there are going to be exceptions to everything and you can make what you want with the numbers but teams should be using these past results regarding availably, salary benefits of a draft pick, and rookie success by round and using that to optimize their approach to building a team. Avoiding these things and assuming that you will always hit big no matter who you draft and that the other parts will somehow magically come together even though there is little data to support finding those other parts in free agency is going to lead to a rough run for the organization.

Adding to the intrigue surrounding the Texans trade for wide receiver Stefon Diggs, the Texans have modified the Diggs’ contract, eliminating the final three years and giving Diggs a raise for the season.

Added incentive for Stefon Diggs: As part of the Buffalo-Houston trade, the Texans wiped out the final three years on Diggs’ contract, giving him the ability to become a free agent after this season, league sources tell ESPN. The Texans also took the $3.5 million guaranteed to… pic.twitter.com/3CdRZY0LhK

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 4, 2024

Diggs’ salary for the 2024 season will now be $22.52 million which will be fifth in the NFL. The salary will trail Michael Pittman ($28M), Calvin Ridley ($25M), Keenan Allen ($23.1M), and Mike Evans ($23M). Three of the four players all signed contracts this year which is the reason for the high salary with Allen being the lone player on an existing contract. Diggs will now be eligible for free agency in 2025.

It is an interesting move by the Texans. Diggs’ 2025 salary was not guaranteed and the raise he receives for 2024 represents an injury guarantee that he had in his contract for 2025. So this is a legit raise for Diggs. The move clearly indicated that the Texans did not view this new relationship as something that they see for the long term. While I am sure that the front office will give the typical lip service that “our goal is for the player to be here for the long term” the fact that they voided out the rest of the contract is usually what you do when you acquire a player and are trying to get the best possible year from him before moving on. With this happening so quickly it would seem that this was all discussed during trade talks in the last few days. It may also shed some light as to discussions about contract modifications that may have been going on Buffalo which also helped lead them to move on.

Do these contract tricks ever work to get a better performance from a player? Probably not but the Texans are hoping for the best and this probably sends a better message about their front office to other players in the league than having Diggs for one year and cutting him in 2025. The Texans cap situation in 25 with Diggs under contract was 26th worst in the NFL which probably made Diggs’ future cloudy at best and this should eliminate any distractions about Diggs’ future and contract. It is possible that the Texans used void years as part of the restructure to add a little extra cap room for this year. By voiding out Diggs’ contract the Texans will not be eligible for a compensatory pick for Diggs when he leaves in free agency so this has nothing to do with trying to recover draft capital.

Diggs’ manipulation of the Bills and Texans with this contract make this deal one of the all time great contracts for a player. The original contract extension signed in 2022 was largely done to help with the Bills salary cap and keep Diggs happy by making his salary come in line with recent contract extensions. The Bills paid Diggs an additional $20.9 million for the 2022 and 2023 seasons and now Diggs will earn $22.52 million. That works out to a one year extension worth $43.14 million, all of which was guaranteed.

$43.14 million is a crazy number for a contract. The current high for a receiver is $30 million a year which is a funny money contract. The real number is about $27 million a year. A one year new money $43.14 cash payment trails only Davante Adams who earned $43.36 million in his first year with the Raiders. As a frame of reference the franchise tag this year was $21.8 million, so Diggs basically doubled the tag with the way things went down. When we talk about business “Hall of Fame” Diggs has probably skyrocketed to the top with this one.