Why not to trade your 1st round pick

[James-Eagles]

I want to be clear the below is data heavy and should only be used in evaluating your draft picks for the following season. We have had coaches in the PNFL suddenly get and go from losing to winning. We had new coaches come in and after a season or 2 start to dominate. That being said those are rare.

Teams who traded their first pick
Seattle 0-5 To Chicago 3-2
Jacksonville 1-4 TO Las Vegas 2-3
Detroit 2-3 To Washtington 5-0
Atlanta 2-3 to Kansas City 3-2
Chicago 3-2 To Seattle 0-5

The only team(Chicago) currently above .500 to trade their first round pick owns Seattle's who is currently position to get the first pick in the draft. Chicago is also the only team to trade their pick to a teams with a worse record but that was a 1st round pick swap.

Draft right now
1. Chicago (Seattle's)
2. Las Vegas(Jacksonville's)
3. Minnesota
4. NY Giants
5.Las Vegas
6.Washington(Detroit)
7. Indy
8. San Fran
9. Kansas City (Atlanta's)

Notice 3 of those teams are currently tied for 1st in their division.

Below I have the facts to back up what I am about to say. These are things you should think about before trading your 1st round pick. If you are not Justin, Thomas, Jerry, Steve or Mitch and possibly Barney. You have a very good shot of drafting in the top 10 and are almost certainly drafting in the top 12. If you made the playoff and you are not the above mention coaches you are most likely not making the playoffs the next season. If you haven't had a winning season good chance 1 or 2 players won't make a difference. It is important to be realistic in how well you are going to preform the next season.

Only active coaches with a full season under their bell and an above .500 career winning percentage

Charlie .582
Jerry .558
Justin .687
Thomas .668
Mitch .590
Barney .519

Active coaches number of winning seasons
Charlie 30 (3 in the last 10)
Justin 28 (10 in the last 10)
Thomas 27 (10 in the last 10)
Jerry 23(8 of the last 10)
Mitch 10(10 of the last 10)
Steve 9(7 of the last 10)
James 5(3 of the last 10)
Barney 4(4 of the last 6)
Tim 1 (1 out of the last 3)
Frederic 1 (1 out of the last 3)

Mark(1) and Shawn(3) both have finished .500



Only Active coaches to win a Division outside of Thomas, Justin, Jerry Mich and Steve in the last 10 season

Barney(Minnesota) 2037, James (Detroit) 2040

Active Coaches who have made the playoffs last 10 season

*Thomas(Jets) 10
*Justin (Chi) 10
*Jerry (Was)10
*Mitch(Atl/Oak/KC) 9
*Steve(LA)7
*Barney(Min) 3
Open teams(Car/phi) 3
*James(Det)3
Charlie(SF) 2
Dean(KC/Atl) 2
Shawn(NYG) 1
Stephen(NE) 1
Tim(Indy) 1
Matt(Jack) 1
Frederic(NO) 1
*denotes teams that made the playoff in consecutive season in the last 10 season This matters since if you make the playoff your schedule will be harder since schedule is done based on where you finished. Keep that in mind if you made the playoffs the previous year.

In the last 10 seasons active Coaches that have made it out of the first round of the playoffs
Thomas(Jets) 8 times
Justin (Chicago) 7 times
Steve(LA) 5 Times
Jerry(Was) 5 times
Mitch(KC/Oak/Atl) 4 times
Charlie(San Fran) 1
Dean (atl) 1
James(Det)1
Barney(Min) 1



Coaches that have made the Super Bowl last 10 season
Thomas(Jets) 8 times 6 Wins
Justin (Cards) 3 Times 1 win
Jerry (Was) 3 Times 1 win
William(Giants) 2 Times 1 win (Retired)
Steve (LA) 1 Time 1win
Dean (Atl) 1 time
Rob (Den) 1 time (retired)

So the reality is most likely if you are in the AFC you are one of 6 teams fighting for 1 wild card spot and most likely losing to the Jets in the first round of the playoffs. In the NFC you are 1 of 7 teams fighting for 2 wild card spots and likely a speed bump to a Washington-Chicago NFC Championship.

[James-Eagles]

I forgot Dean on the winning season coach list

Dean has 3 winning season 2 in the last 10 years.

[Steve-LA Chargers]

Thank you for the great analysis. I hope the league really gets this message.

Very important: If you have not made the playoffs (much), PLEASE stop trading away your 1st round pick! Especially to coaches like Justin, Thomas, Jerry and me.

It's ridiculous that Thomas had the overall #1 pick last season and that Justin is now in the running to do the same. Please halt this madness after this season.

Let's not get to a point where we need to propose a Conservatorship rule (aka the Brittney Spears rule) that teams under .500 require some kind of approval to trade their 1st rounders to coaches that made the playoffs.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Does The Brittney Spears Rule also require them to draft a solid player in the first round in addition to not trading the first round pick?

Didn't someone take a TE with the #2 overall a few seasons ago?

[Steve-LA Chargers]

You mean this pick in 2039?
3631|New England|Kyle Pitts|TE|1-2

Current roster shows:
A TE1 87 Irv Smith
O TE2 85 Tommy Tremble
I TE 89 Kyle Pitts

Makes you want to go hmmmm?!

[Steve-LA Chargers]

In all seriousness though, let's look at the recent drafts (can't look at the 2043 one as it isn't posted). I think only the 2043 draft really had this problem recently. If you look at the last five drafts before it, the 1st round thefts seemed to surge every 2-3 seasons, so maybe James' analysis is good, timely warning to newer coaches so we don't start regressing.

BOLD = championship/playoff caliber teams that don't really belong there and likely acquired the pick

2042 (no "steals")
5520|Indianapolis|Travon Walker|DE|1-1
5455|Jacksonville|Tariq Woolen|CB|1-2
5441|Seattle|Jameson Williams|WR|1-3
5442|Minnesota|Ikem Ekwonu|T|1-4
5243|Detroit|Derek Stingley|CB|1-5
5046|Detroit|Trent McDuffie|CB|1-6
5263|New York N|Kyle Hamilton|S|1-7
5132|Pittsburgh|Alec Pierce|WR|1-8
4998|Anaheim|Evan Neal|T|1-9
5345|San Francisco|Troy Andersen|LB|1-10

2041 (1 "steal")
4734|Indianapolis|Drake London|WR|1-1
4735|New York N|Skyy Moore|WR|1-2
4637|Anaheim|Malik Willis|QB|1-3
4424|Washington|Ahmad Gardner|CB|1-4
4466|Detroit|Aidan Hutchinson|DE|1-5
4585|New Orleans|Devin Lloyd|LB|1-6
4527|San Francisco|Kenyon Green|G|1-7
4425|New England|Kyler Gordon|CB|1-8
4555|Seattle|Jerome Ford|HB|1-9
4742|Minnesota|Justyn Ross|WR|1-10

2040 (3 "steals")
4180|Los Angeles|Ja'Marr Chase|WR|1-1 (I fully tanked the previous season to get this)
4060|New York A|Jaycee Horn|CB|1-2
4315|Chicago|Jamin Davis|LB|1-3
3987|Green Bay|Trevor Lawrence|QB|1-4
4203|New Orleans|Kelvin Joseph|CB|1-5
4307|Chicago|Penei Sewell|T|1-6
4112|Los Angeles|Alijah Vera-Tucker|G|1-7
3957|Cincinnati|Joseph Ossai|DE|1-8
4028|Jacksonville|Andre Cisco|S|1-9
4100|Minnesota|Gregory Rousseau|DE|1-10

2039 (no "steals")
3429|New Orleans|Greg Newsome|CB|1-1
3631|New England|Kyle Pitts|TE|1-2
3580|Kansas City|Justin Fields|QB|1-3
3644|Philadelphia|Jaylen Waddle|WR|1-4
3579|Seattle|Zach Wilson|QB|1-5
3538|Cincinnati|Zaven Collins|LB|1-6
3540|Jacksonville|Baron Browning|LB|1-7
3431|New England|Asante Samuel Jr.|CB|1-8
3455|New York N|Jaelan Phillips|DE|1-9
3591|Carolina|Darrick Forrest|S|1-10

2038 (3 "steals")
2924|Green Bay|Lamar Jackson|CB|1-1
3043|Washington|Kenneth Murray|LB|1-2
3012|Kansas City|Clyde Edwards-Hela|HB|1-3
3173|Philadelphia|Lynn Bowden|WR|1-4
3090|Detroit|Tua Tagovailoa|QB|1-5
2916|Washington|Troy Pride|CB|1-6
3015|Detroit|Ke'Shawn Vaughn|HB|1-7
3106|Chicago|Kyle Dugger|S|1-8
3137|Seattle|Charlie Heck|T|1-9
2935|San Francisco|Yetur Gross-Matos|DE|1-10

[Mitch-Oilers]

Moxs inherited Bryan Smith's roster when he joined the league. Bryan drafted TE Irv Smith with the #1 overall pick. Moxs took over and drafted TE Kyle Pitts with the #2 overall pick a few years later.

Unfortunately, seeing this analysis makes the case for why we can't have wider spreads in ratings. The naarow spreads are a safety net for bad decsions.

[James-Eagles]

Actually in the 2038 Draft my two picks were steals,too.

2037 Detroit went 10-6 and lost to Washington in double OT in the first round of the playoffs.

2038
1. Green Bay 2-14
2.Washington 11-5
3. Kansas City 4-12
4. Philadelphia 4-12
5. Detroit 10-6
6. Washington 11-5
7. Detroit 10-6
8. Chicago 13-3
9. Seattle 7-9
10. San Fran 7-9

So in this draft half of the non playoff team picks(5) were taken by 3 Playoff teams in one conference.

I would say even a non-playoff team having more than one pick in the top 8 or so isn't good either.

2043
1. New York Jets LB Sanders
2. Detroit CB Devon Witherspoon
3. Detroit CB Joey Porter Je.
4. Atlanta WR Quentin Johnston
5. Pittsburgh TE Dalton Kincaid
6. Detroit CB Emmanuel Forbes
7. Detroit LB Daiyan Henley
8. New Orleans QB Bryce Young
9.Detroit LB Dorian WIlliams
10. Anaheim WR Zay Flowers

While the Jets were the only playoff team Detroit did have 5 picks in that 1st round so half of the non playoff teams picks ended up in Detroit. That isn't really isn't good either.

[Steve-LA Chargers]

And this is the top talent that went from teams in need to teams that just reload. I'd say only one pick wasn't great. Most of these players should be starters on teams that haven't won a title yet (or recently).

2041
4424|Washington|Ahmad Gardner|CB|1-4
O CB6 23 Ahmad Gardner
81 82 86 60 96 87 89 94
82 83 86 60 96 87 90 96

2040
4060|New York A|Jaycee Horn|CB|1-2
A CB3 24 Jaycee Horn
83 82 86 59 96 87 89 94
83 82 86 60 96 87 90 95

4315|Chicago|Jamin Davis|LB|1-3
A LB2 52 Jamin Davis
76 76 81 82 90 88 94 94
76 76 81 82 90 88 95 95

4307|Chicago|Penei Sewell|T|1-6
A T3 73 Penei Sewell
69 70 69 99 63 86 92 95
69 70 69 99 63 86 93 96

2038
3043|Washington|Kenneth Murray|LB|1-2
A LB2 91 Kenneth Murray
76 76 81 81 91 89 95 94
76 76 81 81 91 89 96 95

2916|Washington|Troy Pride|CB|1-6
A CB1 32 Troy Pride
82 82 86 61 96 87 89 95
82 82 86 61 96 87 90 95

3106|Chicago|Kyle Dugger|S|1-8
A S2 42 Kyle Dugger
80 81 82 65 91 90 95 99
80 81 83 65 91 91 96 99

[James-Eagles]

Moxs inherited Bryan Smith's roster when he joined the league. Bryan drafted TE Irv Smith with the #1 overall pick. Moxs took over and drafted TE Kyle Pitts with the #2 overall pick a few years later.

Unfortunately, seeing this analysis makes the case for why we can't have wider spreads in ratings. The naarow spreads are a safety net for bad decsions.

I think I have made that case before when people have talked about adding more levels of complexity to things, too.
I will use last season draft for example. In some people's defense I will say there were positions not on my board at going into the draft. That being said I had 8 picks in the first round and the last pick being pick 16. I could have sent in a draft board of my top 9 players I was targeting and completely my draft. Only player in my top 9 that I didn't take was the first pick in the draft.

I have always suggest look at whose team that make the playoff every year where take positions. There are a lot of people reaching for players that have a good shot being there in later rounds.

I will also say some of the best decisions I have made was walking away from a trade. Anyone who trades with me knows I do very little back and forth. I usually try to presenting what I feel is a fair offer. If the counter offer isn't where I want to be I usually just walk away. If it is close I will usually present a final counter offer. I have found the more time I invest in trying to get a trade done usually the worse the trade is for me. Mainly because I have so much time into I end up forcing it to work.