The Draft Trade Value Chart: How Teams Price Picks
How a table of points lets teams compare draft picks of different rounds, where the best-known chart came from, how to use one, and why researchers and front offices argue about it.
A team holds the 16th pick in the draft and wants to move up to the 10th. The team at 10 is willing to listen. What should the team at 16 offer? One option is to argue about it for hours. The other is to look at a table that puts a number on each pick, find the gap and build an offer that closes it.
That table is the draft trade value chart, and it is one of the best-known tools in football front offices. It is also one of the most debated. Understanding it helps with more than draft trades: it explains why teams in the middle of the first round seem to hold so much negotiating power, why a pile of late picks rarely buys a premium one, and why researchers have argued for years that the market pays too much for the very top of the draft.
What the chart is
The chart assigns a point value to every pick in the draft, from the first overall selection down to the last pick of the seventh round. The values are not dollars. They are relative: a pick worth twice as many points is treated as being worth twice as much in a trade. If you hold a pick worth 1,000 points and another team's pick is worth 1,300, you need to add 300 points of other picks to make the exchange even.
In the version most often reproduced, the first overall pick is worth 3,000 points, the second is worth 2,600 and the third 2,200. By the tenth pick the figure is 1,300, the sixteenth is 1,000, and the last pick of the first round is 590. The first pick of the second round, number 33 overall, is worth 580, only a little less than the pick right before it. After that, the values fall slowly and flatten, so that late-round picks are worth very little individually.
These figures come from the widely circulated version of the chart. Teams do not publish theirs, and every club's private model can differ. Treat the numbers here as an illustration of the shape, not as a rulebook.
Where it came from
The best-known chart is traditionally credited to the Dallas Cowboys of the early 1990s, during the time Jimmy Johnson was the head coach. The team was an active trader, and the chart was a way to check whether a proposed deal gave a fair return. Before that, many trades were struck by feel. The chart replaced hunches with a shared yardstick that both sides could use.
The chart spread because it was useful to both parties. A team that offered a package could show the math. A team that was asked to accept a lowball could point to the same table. Over time, versions of the chart circulated through the league, and teams built their own refinements.
One thing worth knowing is that the chart was never a league rule. No one in the commissioner's office enforces it. It is a convention, and teams can ignore it whenever they like.
How to use a chart: a worked example
Here is a hypothetical, built from the reference values above.
Imagine Team A holds the 16th pick (worth 1,000 points) and wants to move up to the 10th pick (worth 1,300) held by Team B. The gap is 300 points. Team A has to add picks worth about 300 points to its 16th selection.
Now suppose Team A holds both the 32nd and 33rd picks, the last of the first round and the first of the second (590 and 580). Together those are worth 1,170 points. That is more than the 16th pick alone (1,000), which means those two picks could be traded for a slot a bit earlier than 16. But 1,170 falls short of the 10th pick's 1,300, so the package would not be enough to reach 10 by itself.
That is the entire mechanic. The chart does not decide whether a trade should happen; it tells both sides roughly where the line sits. The negotiation is over how far above or below the line the final price lands.
What the example shows
- A single high pick can outweigh several lower ones. Combine enough late-round picks and you may still not match a pick in the top half of the first round, because the values drop so steeply.
- The middle of the first round is a bargaining sweet spot. The gap between neighboring picks there is large enough to matter and small enough that a modest addition can bridge it.
- Late picks are mostly sweeteners. They help close small gaps but rarely carry a deal.
The research challenge
The chart has lasted for decades, but it has critics. The most cited academic challenge is a paper by Cade Massey and Richard Thaler, published in 2013 under the title "The Loser's Curse." Its argument is that the market for draft picks overvalues the very early selections. The researchers compared what teams pay, in trade value and in salary, for early picks with the on-field value those players provided, and concluded that the surplus, meaning the value a player provides beyond what he costs, did not rise with draft position the way the trade market assumed. In their view, the trade market's values for the earliest picks sit higher than the players' production, net of their pay, can justify.
Other analysts have proposed alternative charts built on different approaches, such as measuring how much value players drafted at each slot have actually produced. The details differ from one study to the next, and no alternative has displaced the traditional chart in everyday use, so treat any single replacement with the same caution you would give the original.
None of this proves that any individual team should ignore the chart. It does suggest that a team which routinely trades up for an early pick may be paying a premium, and a team that is willing to trade down may be getting a fair return or better. It is a research finding and a topic of debate, not a settled rule, and teams weigh it alongside what they know about their own needs and the players available.
Why the chart is still used
If the values are open to question, why do teams still use it? The answer is practical.
- It is common ground. Both sides know the chart, so it gives them a starting reference without having to argue about the method.
- It is fast. Draft-day trades happen in minutes. A table that can be consulted instantly beats a long analysis.
- It is a baseline, not a verdict. Teams adjust from it based on their own models, their view of the class and the market for particular positions.
- Everyone else has one. Even a team that distrusts the chart needs to know what its trading partner is looking at.
In practice, front offices maintain internal versions and update them as they learn which picks produce the most value. The public chart is a starting point; each club's version is private.
Trading down: what the seller is really getting
The team that gives up the earlier pick is usually the one that benefits from the chart's shape. When a club trades down, it receives several lower-value picks in exchange for one higher-value pick. The chart tells it whether the return is in the expected range, and the shape of the table explains why the seller can often ask for a lot: the steep early drop means a modest move down already produces a sizeable payment.
For the seller, the question is not whether the points add up but whether the extra picks will turn into useful players. A club with many roster holes may welcome extra selections in the second and third rounds. A club that has already built a strong roster may prefer one high pick it can use. That is why two teams in identical positions can answer the same offer differently.
For the buyer, the question is whether the player at the target slot is worth the premium. Buyers tend to justify a trade up by a specific player they believe will not be available later, and by the knowledge that a first-round pick comes with a fixed, relatively cheap contract and a fifth-year option attached, as described in The Fifth-Year Option Explained.
A second hypothetical
Suppose a team picks near the end of the first round and has no obvious target there. Another club wants to move up from the middle of the round. The first team can agree to trade down and take the extra picks, or stay put. If it trades down, it gives up the chance at the player it might have taken at the end of the round, but it gains additional selections that the chart prices as roughly equal in total. Whether that is a good bargain depends on whether the team expects to find players of similar quality later in the draft, which is a scouting judgment the chart cannot make for it.
What the chart does not account for
A single table cannot capture everything about a trade. Several factors matter and are not in the points.
- The strength of the class. In a draft with many players a team likes, picks later in the round are worth more to that team than the chart implies, because good options remain. In a thin class, the reverse is true.
- Position. The chart treats all picks as equal, but a team looking for a quarterback may pay far more than a team seeking a depth player. The chart cannot reflect that.
- Contract cost. An early pick comes with a rookie salary that is fixed by slot. The chart measures what teams will give up, not what the player will cost. Our piece on rookie contracts explains how that works.
- Future picks. Teams generally treat a pick in a later draft as worth less than the same slot this year. The chart is built for a current draft, so clubs apply their own discounts for future years.
- The fifth-year option. Picks in the first round come with a fifth-year team option, which adds control that later picks lack. The chart does not price it.
How the order of picks is set
Before a team can use a chart, it must know where its picks fall. That depends on the previous season's results, the playoffs and a few special rules for ties and compensatory picks. The mechanics are covered in How the NFL Draft Order Is Set. The key point for the chart is that the position of a pick can change in the weeks between the end of the season and the draft only through trades and compensatory awards, so the board teams work from is stable once the order is final. If you want to see where each club picks, the draft page and standings are good places to start.
Where the chart fits in draft history
The question the chart answers, what is one pick worth compared with another, is as old as pick trading itself. The chart is one answer that happened to stick, and it is a product of the draft as it existed in the early 1990s: a seven-round event with rookie pay that was still negotiated pick by pick. Rookie salaries are now tied to the slot, which makes the early picks cheaper to hold than they once were and changes what a team gets when it trades up. The wider story of how the draft developed is told in The History of the NFL Draft.
Misconceptions
"The chart is official." It is not part of any league rulebook or the collective bargaining agreement.
"Every team uses the same chart." Public versions exist, but each club keeps its own model and adjusts values for its own plans.
"Higher picks always produce better players." On average, earlier picks have better odds, but individual outcomes vary widely, and that variation is one reason researchers question the steepness of the chart.
"Trading down is always smart." The research suggests it can be, but it depends on what the team gets and on whether it has a player it truly wants.
"A trade that follows the chart is fair." It is in the range. Whether it is wise depends on the class, the position and the team's needs.
Reading a trade yourself
When a draft-day trade is announced, you can do a rough check with a few steps.
- Find the picks exchanged and look up their approximate point values in a version of the chart.
- Add each side's picks and compare totals.
- Ask whether the team moving up is paying a premium, and whether the team moving down is receiving a reasonable return.
- Consider position, class strength and future picks. Those often explain a difference.
The result will not tell you whether the trade will work out, but it will tell you whether the price was ordinary or unusual. For the rules of how trades are completed and dated, see NFL Trades: Rules, Deadlines and How Picks Are Valued.
The short version
- The draft trade value chart gives every pick a point value so teams can compare offers across rounds.
- In the widely reproduced version, the first pick is worth 3,000 points and the last pick of the first round 590, with values falling steeply and then flattening.
- It is credited to the early-1990s Dallas Cowboys, is not a league rule, and each team keeps its own model.
- Academic work, including the 2013 paper "The Loser's Curse," argues that the market overpays for the earliest picks.
- The chart is a baseline; class strength, position, future picks and the fifth-year option all shift real prices.
- To follow a draft, watch the draft page for trades as they are announced.