NFL draft trades: 5 teams, including Browns, gained huge value in pick swaps since ‘11

Trading draft picks, especially during the NFL draft, is a lot of fun for fans

The NFL draft is fun for most fans. While teams are focused on planning for the future, fans get to hope for immediate results, get to ask a lot of “what if?” questions and get to be surprised, mostly, with the results.

Trades, especially during the draft, make it all the more exciting.

For the Cleveland Browns and their fans, the NFL draft has mostly been fool’s gold and a disappointment. Most players never lived up to the expectations of their draft slotting. Trades down out of high picks for more “bites at the apple” robbed fans of premium players at premium positions.

That doesn’t mean that the Browns trades of draft picks have been bad but they really haven’t worked out. Not only have they not been bad but Cleveland’s GMs have gotten the most value in pick-for-pick trades since 2011 by a wide margin:

If only the acquired picks were used better, the Browns may have entered contention much sooner.

A quick rundown of the guys running the show in Cleveland since 2011:

• Tom Heckert: 2010-2012
• Michael Lombardi: 2013
• Ray Farmer: 2014-2015
• Sashi Brown: 2016-2017
• John Dorsey: 2017-2019
• Andrew Berry: 2020-present

It is sad that in 13 drafts, with another just around the corner, Cleveland has had six different guys at the head of their front office.

As many of you reading have probably thought, winning trades doesn’t matter if winning doesn’t also then happen on the field soon after winning those trades. Interestingly, five relatively successful organizations follow the Browns on the graph above. It lends to the idea that the moves, big picture, Cleveland’s GMs have made were good ones but the corresponding selections failed.

Are you surprised by the above graph and how big the Browns margin is? Do you care, at all, given all the losing that has happened during that 13-year timeframe?