Examining trade-down vs. stick-and-pick philosophies
The Vikings are projected to trade down by many mocks -- will they? Or is it better to chase stars at the top?
By Matthew Coller
The analytics universe has done everything it can to solve the NFL Draft and yet it still remains an enigma.
For example, every draft study ever done has found that the NFL is really good at understanding where players should be drafted. How do we know? Because the historical value of each slot drops as picks come off the board. If the NFL was terrible at scouting, then the success rates of the top 10 picks wouldn’t be much different than picks 10-20 and yet that’s exactly the case, all the way through the seventh round. At the same time, analytics folks have long argued that trading down was a good strategy. How can it be a smart idea to move farther away from the most valuable picks?
The very basic way to explain the concept is that the chances of hitting on two picks is better than one. By the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft value chart, the 24th overall pick has the same expected value as the 50th and 174th picks.
While that makes sense in the aggregate — there have been a handful of fifth-rounders (Stefon Diggs!) who have become very good players — one part of the theory doesn’t quite fit: The Game-Changer.
With the 50th overall pick, the odds of getting a standout player are lower than 24th. You don’t have to look farther than the Minnesota Vikings to see the types of players they grabbed in that range: Jordan Addison 23rd overall in 2023, Christian Darrisaw 23rd in 2021 and Justin Jefferson 22nd in 2020.
Since the ridiculously good 2020 draft that produced Antoine Winfield Jr., Jalen Hurts and Trevon Diggs around the 50th pick, only one player has earned a Pro Bowl nod (Detroit’s Brian Branch). A handful have turned into really good players like safety Tre’Von Moehrig, IOL Cam Jurgens, WR Rashee Rice and CB Cooper DeJean but not many who become franchise pillars like Jefferson or Darrisaw or others from the mid-to-late first round like Jared Verse, Brian Thomas, Zay Flowers, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Trent McDuffie, Tyler Linderbaum, Brandon Aiyuk etc.
There will always be hits and misses — and there are lots of misses in the late first — but the hits tend to hit harder and more often. Using some hard data, if we use Pro-Football Reference Weight Career Approximate Value, picks 40 through 50 only made up 64% of the Approximate Value of picks 15 through 25.
The question is whether the addition of a middle or Day 3 pick makes up for that gap? But even fewer game-changers come from Day 3. You have to be the team that finds the needle in a haystack with the addition picks in order to justify the decision.
That might be worth it under certain circumstances. If a team is severely lacking in salary cap space and needs to find players by any means. Even landing a couple average players might be an enormous victory for a cap-strapped team. During the Kirk Cousins era, the Vikings struggled to hit on middle-round players and it severely hurt their chances to win because they couldn’t spend big in free agency.
The current version of the Vikings is different. With JJ McCarthy under center for the next three years on his rookie deal, the Vikings can go out into free agency and find complimentary players and overspend for them. Players like Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, Jordan Mason and Isaiah Rodgers aren’t going to be considered franchise players but they do push the needle in a positive direction.
What you can’t find in free agency is franchise players. If we look at all of the free agency spending this year, the only players who signed with different teams and cleared $20 million per year were Sam Darnold ($33.5M/year), Milton Williams ($26M), Davante Adams ($22M), Stefon Diggs ($21M), Dan Moore ($20M), and Justin Fields ($20M). Aaron Banks and Josh Sweat got $19 million and several of those contracts include funny money that makes them look more lucrative than they are.
Teams have to land game-changers in the draft. That may be why the Vikings traded up for Dallas Turner last year. It appears that they viewed Turner as having the potential to one day become one of those $20+ million type players, so they moved heaven and earth to get him. By the theory of trading down and hoarding picks, it wasn’t a sound move. By the theory of chasing game-changers, it makes complete sense. The jury is very much out on whether it turns out to be the right move but you can see the thinking behind it.
That brings us to 2025.
Some might say that it’s a draft-season cliche to claim that there isn’t a big difference between picks 15 and 50 but this year there might be more truth to that rumor than usual. The draft appears to have a strong pen of prospects at positions like defensive tackle and cornerback who are currently projected to go between picks 40 and 50. Mock Draft Database lists the following prospects from 40-50:
CB Azareye’h Thomas, CB Trey Amos, OT Aireontae Ersery, QB Jalen Milroe, ED Landon Jackson, RB TreVeyon Henderson, CB Ben Morrison, DT Darius Alexander, DT Tyleik Williams, S Xavier Watts and RB Quinshon Judkins
That’s a group that includes potential starting corners, safeties and DTs — all of which the Vikings need.
With only four draft picks, you can make a pretty strong argument that taking one of those players and then getting more swings at the plate later on in the draft with hopes of landing development players (remember Cam Bynum and Josh Metellus were fourth and sixth-round players who developed) or would they prefer to hunt a big-time difference maker in the first?
It’s hard to deny that players like Georgia do-it-all safety Malaki Starks or NFL Combine legend Nick Emmanwori or massive guard Tyler Booker or freakishly athletic DT Kenneth Grant or productive corner Jahdae Barron or star Oregon DT Derrick Harmon— all guys projected between 15 and 30 — have statistical and athletic resumes that suggest their upside could be much higher.
The other part might depend on how much the Vikings want to see production right away. The later the pick, the more potential for requiring development. If they feel that this year begins chase-the-Super-Bowl mode with the roster being stacked with proven veterans, they might not want any projects in the draft and aim for a plug-and-play player.
As much as GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has been painted as the “analytics GM,” his background as a trader and researcher doesn’t have to mean he is in alignment with every single process that is accepted by the public analytics community. He may view the upside being more important than the odds of a “hit” in the draft. In his first draft, he traded down to accumulate picks and in the last two drafts he’s gone with players either at their designated spot or lower. We will find out later this month where he stands on that debate this time around.
Not a huge fan of going safety in the first round. I’ll have to grind some more tape, but Emmanwori in particular just seems like a bad pick to me. He didn’t do any agility tests for his RAS, and looking at his highlight reels I don’t think he would do well on those. I’d value agility more in a safety than straight line speed and power. I want a guy who can say “oh crap” and change directions on a dime on the back end. Apparently they both have issues with tackling, but I’d rather wait on safety and take Watts or Mukuba. They both look like great value for 2/3 round.
It's a funny juxtaposition: higher picks do better, so the league as a whole mostly knows how to assess players, but there hasn't been a single GM who avoids busts. Well before passing on JJ for Reagor, Roseman once used a first rounder on a 27 year old firefighter.
In terms of this year's pick, the details matter. Moving back requires a buyer--which means there is someone who wants the player that's available at 24. One would hope to thus get a premium, which is a different outcome than getting equal draft value allocated in later rounds.