It’s a tale of two charts, sorta.
Just like it took trading away a future first for the Panthers to avoid the ignominy of selecting first overall in spite of the league’s worst record in 2023, the Carolina Panthers were able to execute a trade for the 32nd overall pick last night in spite of their not having won the Super Bowl. They made that trade with the Buffalo Bills, who themselves were notable for not having won the Super Bowl last year. Isn’t the draft exciting?
All jokes and self-loathing aside, moving up just one spot in the draft has been a controversial move amongst some fans. Many are upset at the prospect, but many more are simply scratching their heads at the team’s willingness to basically trade a fourth round pick (no. 141) for a sixth round pick (no. 200) for the privilege of getting ahead of themselves in the draft and picking up the possibility of a fifth-year option on Xavier Legette’s rookie contract.
Let’s take a look at that 59-pick drop through three different trade charts to see if it is as big of a deal as some are making it out to be.
The Jimmy Johnson chart
The Jimmy Johnson trade value chart has been a standard reference for members of the media during trades since it was devised somewhere in the early 90s. It assigns a point value to each draft pick so that trades could be valued as a simple mathematical exchange. It does not account for compensatory picks because compensatory picks were not tradable when it was made some 30 years ago.
Last night, the Panthers gave up picks no. 33 and no. 141 to Buffalo in exchange for picks no. 32 and no. 200. The Johnson chart values those picks as follows: no. 32 (590 points), no. 33 (580) points, no. 141 (36 points), no. 200 (11 points). That means the Panthers traded 616 points to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for 601 points. The difference of 15 points is 2.5% of the value of the Panthers original pick at no. 32.
The Rich Hill Chart
It has been widely known for years that most NFL team have moved on to more advanced models of the trade value chart. Rich Hill, a contributor over at Pats Pulpit, constructed such a new chart in the years after the 2011 CBA widely changed the value of first round picks.
The Hill chart values the picks traded last night as follows: no. 32 (184.3 points), no. 33 (179.54) points, no. 141 (14.47 points), no. 200 (3.89 points). That means the Panthers traded 194.01 points to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for 188.19 points. The difference of 5.82 points is 3.24% of the value of the Panthers original pick at no. 32.
The Fitzgerald-Spielberger NFL Draft Trade Value Chart
The guys at Over The Cap have also developed their own model with NFL analysts Brad Spielberger and Jason Fitzgerald. This chart combined average contract projections, weighted by percentage of each positions group selected at a given pick. Then they did more math and came out with the their chart.
The Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart values the picks traded last night as follows: no. 32 (1244 points), no. 33 (1228) points, no. 141 (492 points), no. 200 (315 points). That means the Panthers traded 1720 points to the Buffalo Bills in exchange for 1549 points. The difference of 171 points is 14% of the value of the Panthers original pick at no. 32.
What does this all mean?
Well, first of all, it should be no surprise that the Panthers gave away more points than they received by the measure of any chart. Teams who are trading up have to pay a premium to do so. The Panthers paid a small premium, no matter whose chart you use to measure, to get the fifth-year option on Legette and potentially beat out other suitors for the pick.
Could they have gotten away with less?
Maybe. Buffalo’s picks at no. 160 or no. 163 would have been closer to even in value.
But this is the trade they made in the heat of the moment and it was certainly not, by the values, an epic fleecing in exchange for a first round pick. In the end, it turns out 40 picks isn’t a huge difference in the later rounds. Half the guys drafted after the fourth could well end up as undrafted free agents if not taken by the one team interested in them.
The value of the trade is fine. The logic, absent of another wide receiver team expressing interest in trading for the no. 32 overall pick from Buffalo is a little questionable. But the Panthers new front office clearly thought Legette was somewhere between 2-14% better than, for example, Ladd McConkey or Adonai Mitchell. I’m willing to let that evaluation play out for a couple of years before passing judgment.
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