2015 NFL Draft Highlights Teams' Growing Reluctance to Gamble with Draft Picks

If the 2015 NFL draft taught us anything, it's that teams are growing more and more educated about the cost of trading up. While there was plenty of trading on Friday and Saturday, only two trades happened during Thursday's first round—this despite a class that draftniks and insiders repeatedly said would have fewer than 20 first-round grades from most teams. Hypothetically, that should have stimulated teams with low first-round picks to trade up for the last guys on their boards with first-round grades.

Instead, most teams appeared reluctant to pay the price.

The teams that did successfully trade down in those situations didn't get a single pick above the fourth round. San Diego only had to pay their fourth- and fifth-rounders to move up two spots with San Francisco, and Denver gave Detroit only center Manny Ramirez and a pair of fifth-round picks. While Chase Stuart of Football Perspective still thought the teams that traded down did well, they did well in volume, not in theoretical quality.

Compare this to past first rounds, and you'll quickly see that this is a trend, not an outlier. Teams are consciously becoming less interested in paying heavy freight to trade up unless that trade nets them what they believe will be a future franchise quarterback. 

Year	Extra 1st Round Picks Acquired	Extra Day 2 Picks Acquired
2015	0	0
2014	1	2
2013	0	5
2012	2	5
2011	2	4

*By "extra" picks, I mean picks beyond the earliest pick a team traded for. For example, if someone traded No. 28 for No. 30 and a third-round pick, the third-round pick would be "extra."

It's true that the NFL is somewhat behind the other sports leagues from a pure analytical perspective, for a whole host of reasons that go beyond the simple "11 players are harder to track than five or two." But this is a sign that some aspect of the Calculator Revolution has reached the shores of the NFL. There are still teams that are willing to give up advantageous prices, but they are becoming less and less prevalent. 

Only four times in the first three rounds did Stuart's numbers judge that a team got more than 140 cents on the dollar for trading down:

Trading Down	Trading Up	Price	Cents on the Dollar
Washington (69)	Seattle	95 (3rd), 112 (4th), 167 (5th), 181st (6th)	180
St. Louis (41)	Carolina	57 (2nd), 89 (3rd), 201 (6th)	143
New England (96)	Cleveland	111 (4th), 147th (5th), 202 (6th)	143
Cleveland (43)	Houston	51 (2nd), 116 (4th), 195 (6th)	140

In the three instances that didn't involve a late-third-rounder, I think it's clear that the acquiring team overpaid. I think Seattle's trade-up for Kansas State's Tyler Lockett is easier to defend, because they've had such an advantage in success with undrafted free agents that late-round picks are less likely to make their roster. This is essentially what we heard from their camp as these trades were being completed. 

Likewise, Rick Smith's trade-up for Mississippi State linebacker Benardrick McKinney didn't cost his team any picks before the third round. While I'm not particularly inspired by the selection (especially the part where the Texans aren't sure McKinney will play a role on third down early), I also don't think the Texans got reamed in the trade. 

But Carolina was one of the two teams to give up a third-round pick (Detroit gave up a future third to trade up for Stanford cornerback Alex Hunter), and at the time they'd done it, they were looking at starting well-known bust Michael Oher at tackle. That trade-up was a particularly curious one, because Carolina didn't leap up to grab a tackle but instead for Michigan wideout Devin Funchess, who duplicates a lot of what the Panthers already had in Kelvin Benjamin. Eventually the Panthers traded up a second time to land Oklahoma lineman Daryl Williams, who may be a fit at tackle. 

My point is, outside of the fact that I think those were all questionable players to trade up for, it's a damn sight better than some of the major blunders we've seen in the past. You know, the ones where Denver deals the future first-rounder that will become Earl Thomas to Seattle for the second-rounder they'd use on Alphonso Smith. 

The NFL is gradually getting better at drafting efficiently and utilizing better trade charts. Seven years ago, a draft like Carolina's would have been criticized for its depth but praised for "quality over quantity." 

Now NFL teams are starting to put a better value on quantity, and the only ones giving it up seem, well, rather antiquated in comparison. 

All DYAR and DVOA numbers cited are courtesy of Football Outsiders. Learn more about DVOA here.

Rivers McCown is an NFL Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.