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The two best and most accurate NFL Draft Trade Value Charts in assessing pick exchanges
By Travis May,
12 days ago
How does anyone know if an NFL Draft trade involving picks is actually fair value? That's a question asked by many, dating back decades. And every year there's vast disagreement as to who "reached" and who "won" on trades as fans, teams, and journalists across the country try to grade NFL Draft performances. Luckily, over the years draft experts and NFL staffers have created a number of trade value charts available to the public.
The first major and most notable trade value chart espoused by many was the one created by Jimmy Johnson. Long-time college football and NFL head coach Jimmy Johnson created a trade value chart back in the 1990s that gave a numerical point value to each and every NFL Draft pick from 1 through well beyond pick 200. The idea was to create a more objective measure of value when packaging picks together so as to avoid giving away too much value in a move up or down in any particular NFL Draft.
That first major trade value chart was useful to many back then. However, trade value charts have come a long way since Jimmy Johnson's primitive model three decades ago. So which trade value charts are the best? And which ones should fans and media members use when assessing pick exchanges in the NFL Draft? Let's dive in.
Before we jump right into the numbers to decide which trade value chart is best, let's take a look at one of the most popular recent examples of an NFL general manager "winning" on draft day.
You may have seen the video of Arizona Cardinals' general manager Monti Ossenfort trading down from pick three, then moving back up to pick six to select Ohio State offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr. in round one of last year's NFL Draft. If you haven't, it's definitely worth a quick watch here on Adam Schefter's post below.
In short, Monti Ossenfort absolutely destroyed the Houston Texans on paper with the initial trade down from three, regardless of which trade value chart you use. Even when comparing the two most different major trade value charts out there the Cardinals came out on top by a wide margin.
We'll get to the exact differences between the major trade value charts shortly, but using either the Fitzgerald-Spielberger or the Rich Hill methods both resulted in the Cardinals forcing the Texans to pay at least a 36% premium in value. Here's what both trades look like when comparing point totals for each package involved:
Trade Down From Pick 3
Fitzgerald-Spielberger Estimated Package Values
Cardinals Sent: 3089
Texans Sent: 4884 (low end estimate including the future picks)
Rich Hill Estimated Package Values
Cardinals Sent: 547
Texans Sent: 747
Premium Paid by Texans
If we use the Fitzgerald-Spielberger method the Texans actually paid a whopping 58% premium! And even using the Rich Hill method, the Texans still overpaid by nearly 37% in point value. The Texans did use that pick to select the inevitable Defensive Rookie of the Year, Will Anderson. So they're probably feeling just fine with their choice, but on paper, and at the time, it certainly looked like a major overpay.
NFL teams have their own charts that they build internally, so it's quite likely the Texans' chart painted this deal to look a lot closer. Or they were just fine paying up for one of the best edge rusher prospects in recent memory.
Trade Up from 12
Fitzgerald-Spielberger Estimated Package Values
Cardinals Sent: 3360
Lions Sent: 2871
Rich Hill Estimated Package Values
Cardinals Sent: 542
Lions Sent: 502
Premium Paid by Cardinals
This trade was a lot closer, and is more typical in terms of value exchange in the first round. The team trading up typically has to pay some sort of "extra" otherwise the team with the earlier pick doesn't have much incentive to move.
The Cardinals paid 17% premium via the Fitzgerald-Spielberger and only an 8% premium via the Rich Hill method.
Combined Trade Takeaways
All in all when we combine both trades the Cardinals came out on top value-wise by 20% via the Fitzgerald-Spielberger and 15% via the Rich Hill. That might make one believe that the Rich Hill trade value chart is superior, but this is just one example. To decipher which trade value charts are best, we really have to understand where the value lives within each one.
Understanding the Major Trade Value Charts
There are four major trade value charts out there that many reference today. The aforementioned Jimmy Johnson, the Rich Hill, the Fitzgerald-Spielberger, and the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective chart.
In short, the Rich Hill chart was meant to be a modern adaptation of the Jimmy Johnson method, just slightly modified and scaled down to smaller numbers to fit closer with real modern NFL trade values.
The Fitzgerald-Spielberger (from Over the Cap ) and the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective use a mix of actual on-field results, rookie contract info, and draft capital all together to create their own charts to suggest how each draft pick "should" be valued based on verifiable pick slot expectations.
Each Trade Value Chart Looks Completely Different
Surprisingly, when you put each chart next to each other it's hard to tell what you're looking at, and how they all differ, because they operate at completely different scales. Just look at how different certain picks within the draft are valued by each chart:
If your eyes glazed over trying to compare those numbers, I don't blame you. But even if we put the charts on top of each other to show the points sorted by NFL Draft pick it's still quite impossible to really compare the charts at all, as you can see in the image below.
The four well known trade value charts use very different point scales.
The "Right" Comparisons of Trade Value Charts
So how do we fix this issue of impossible comparison? And again, how do we tell which ones are actually more useful?
First, we start by putting all the trade value charts on the same scale. Without getting too nerdy about it, we can do this by looking at each trade value charts point distribution and taking the standard deviation of each point value at every draft pick. Then we just stack those charts on top of each other again. This time, we get a completely different look, showing that the trade value charts aren't scaled too differently after all. However, there are a few clear differences that can point us towards the "best" charts when we look at them this way.
When put on the same scale, the exact differences between the major trade value charts become clear.
The easiest thing to see is that the Jimmy Johnson and Rich Hill methods are truly almost identical in how their points are distributed. Yes, the Rich Hill model values the first overall pick at an absolutely wild premium and then flattens out a bit slower, but they're very near the exact same thing.
The other two, Fitzgerald-Spielberger and Harvard, are also quite similar in their point distribution. The main difference clearly stemming from how they value the end of round one and the majority of round two in each NFL Draft. The Harvard method deploys a sharp drop off in value from the last pick in round one to the first pick in round two. Then once the two methods converge near the end of round two they're almost on top of each other throughout the remainder of the draft.
So, what does all of that mean?
In short, the Jimmy Johnson (JJ) and Rich Hill (RH) methods are based on the same archaic scribbles put into place long before the age of analytics. The Fitzgerald-Spielberger (FS) and Harvard methods use regression analysis to derive real pick value based on historic on-field results for every single drafted player in a given time frame. So yes, that essentially makes the latter two obviously superior methods of pick valuation. Either one should be utilized over the Jimmy Johnson and Rich Hill when trying to determine anything close to "fair" trade value.
What are some dead giveaways that this is actually true? For starters, the excess value placed on the first few picks via the JJ and RH methods almost work if we're assuming those selections are quarterbacks. But it also vastly inflates the assumed hit rate of quarterbacks taken in those draft slots. Second, JJ and RH flatten out far too quickly, reaching their average point values around pick 70, and making almost everything beyond pick 100 the same nearly useless entity. That's incorrect both in terms of hit rates and on-field value compared to rookie contract cost (which could be it's own series of articles by itself).
The FS and Harvard methods accurately adjust for expected hit rate of early first round picks. They also accurately depict how much more valuable second, third, and even early fourth round picks are when compared to late sixth and seventh round picks overall. They're just obviously superior in every conceivable way.
Fitzgerald-Spielberger versus Harvard
The Fitzgerald-Spielberger and Harvard chart distributions look nearly the same because they used a similar premise to arrive at their conclusions. However, there's one key difference between the two that likely yields the true "winner" of the trade value chart discussion.
Harvard's method focuses in on " Approximate Value ", which assesses quality statistical on-field success. They use data going back to 1980, which is great because they get a large sample of data to work with in creating their pick values. However, going back that far includes some data that doesn't really fit the modern era of football. 1980 was 14 years before the implementation of a salary cap and 31 years before the modern rookie wage scale came into play.
The Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart assesses on-field production and success similar to Harvard. But the key difference? They also adjust for that success versus the rookie contract construction of every single player drafted since the rookie wage scale was introduced in 2011. It's an absolutely brilliant build.
So while Fitzgerald-Spielberger may be a mouthful to say (let alone read), it may very well be the "best" trade value chart out there.
2024 NFL Draft Applications
With the draft nearly upon us, using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger method we can get an idea of what might be fair value for one of the most heavily rumored trade-ups in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Minnesota Vikings look primed to trade up using picks 11 and 23 to draft their quarterback of the future. But what kind of trade upwards would actually be fair? And what can we expect? Given that pick 11 and 23 together equal about 3200 points on the Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart, here are a few "fair" trade packages that would roughly equal those two firsts from each early first round team:
Commanders: Pick 2
Patriots: Pick 3, Pick 231
Arizona: Pick 4, Pick 186
Chargers: Pick 5, Pick 140
Giants: Pick 6, Pick 183, 2024 7th Round Pick
Titans: Pick 7, Pick 182, Late 2024 6th Round Pick
In every example the Vikings would be paying around a 20% premium. Typically 16-20% is the minimum premium required to move up in the early first round via the Fitzgerald-Spielberger trade value chart. Since all these deals are around the minimum expectation, one of these teams might try and pull a move that lands them an extra mid-round future pick too. If Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is truly desperate he might even pay an additional future second round pick, but there's virtually no way a third first round pick is involved. That would be approaching "worst trade in NFL history" territory.
The Fitzgerald-Spielberger Trade Value Chart
Since it is the best trade value chart, here's how each pick should be valued according to the Fitzgerald-Spielberger Trade Value Chart below. You can find the full chart and many great salary cap resources at overthecap.com , where this tool originated.
You can find this trade chart and all sorts of salary cap resources here: https://overthecap.com/draft-trade-value-chart
I hope you enjoyed this breakdown of the four major NFL Draft trade value charts and which two are clearly the best. Be looking for more NFL Draft coverage here at A to Z Sports all year long! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
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