NFL Draft pick trade value chart: How Jimmy Johnson, Rich Hill shaped the way that teams evaluate draft picks in trades

The NFL hasn't always been a trade-happy league, but we have seen quite a few deals during the 2022 offseason. Several big-name quarterbacks including Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan and Deshaun Watson have been traded and eight teams in the NFL now have multiple first-round picks.

Those teams now have a lot of buying power in the 2022 NFL Draft. They will be able to move up and down the board as they please while also setting themselves up to add assets during the 2023 NFL Draft if all goes well.

That said, NFL fans may wonder exactly how these teams evaluate draft picks when making a trade. After all, teams don't know who will be on the board at certain junctures in the draft, so how can they properly assess the worth of a pick?

📲 Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp

Over the years, the NFL has figured out a way to determine the value of a draft pick. Some of the sport's brightest minds have created charts that assess what each pick is worth. Some were founded arbitrarily while others approached the problem more analytically, but at this point, every NFL team has a trade value chart.

That doesn't mean that they are all the same. In fact, they vary from team to team. But generally, all teams are in the same ballpark when discussing draft pick value, and that's thanks to the charts that were pioneered by Jimmy Johnson.

Below is a look at Johnson's original draft value chart as well as a more recently-created chart that uses a more analytical approach to the valuation than Johnson's.

SN's NFL DRAFT HQ: Live tracker | Pick-by-pick grades | Top 250 big board

NFL Draft pick trade value chart: Jimmy Johnson

The original NFL Draft value chart was created by Jimmy Johnson during his time with the Cowboys in the early 1990s. The idea was simple. He wanted to assign numerical values to each draft pick as a way to evaluate the worth of picks for potential trades.

So, Johnson created the draft value trade chart by giving the first pick in the draft the highest value at 3,000 points. Each pick after that decreased in value. This chart gave the Cowboys a competitive advantage when making trades in the early stages of its use, but eventually, the rest of the NFL adopted it.

The value chart changes slightly from year to year because of the varying number of compensatory picks tacked on to each round beginning in the third and beyond. Here's a look at how the values shake out for the 2022 NFL Draft, per Drafttek.com.

NFL Draft pick trade value chart: Rich Hill

Though Johnson's draft value chart was the first of its kind, it is no longer the be-all, end-all for NFL teams. Part of the reason for that is the fact that Johnson somewhat arbitrarily created the values in his initial chart. His concept was strong, but he had more limited access to statistical information and historical trends than NFL teams have now. So, he had to ballpark it a bit more.

In recent years, analytics have become far more common in the NFL, so it stands to reason that teams have done a thorough analysis of the trade value chart to find its shortcomings. That has changed the overall value of each pick as well.

The trade value charts from team to team are similar, but they are not one size fits all. That said, Rich Hill of Pats Pulpit created a draft pick value chart that many believe more accurately reflects the current value of draft picks in the NFL compared to Johnson's.

Below is a look at Hill's model for 2022, which begins by assigning the No. 1 pick 1,000 points instead of 3,000.

When Hill first created his draft value chart in 2018, he cautioned that there are instances when the values are unlikely to line up. Teams often have to pay a premium when moving up for a top-tier prospect (like a quarterback) and must pay a premium to trade back into the first round.

Additionally, Hill notes that there is no "perfect value" for future draft picks. They are often discounted in future trades, as teams view current assets as more valuable than future assets. Hill explains that the discount on those picks often amounts to about one round. As such, a future second-round pick would be viewed as roughly the same as a current third-round pick.

Examples of using the two trade value charts

Most of the trades involving 2022 NFL Draft picks to date have involved players and/or future draft picks within them. While those can be assessed using the chart, it's a bit harder to do since players and future draft picks aren't given exact values.

As such, when looking at examples of the differences between the two trade value charts, it behooves us to look back at a couple of trades from the 2021 NFL Draft.

The first is the trade that the Eagles made to move from the 12th pick in Round 1 to the 10th to select DeVonta Smith. The details of that trade are as follows:

Eagles receive:

• Round 1, Pick 10 (WR DeVonta Smith)

Cowboys receive:

• Round 1, Pick 12 (LB Micah Parsons)
• Round 3, Pick 84 (DE Chauncey Golston)

On the surface, this trade looks like a win for the Cowboys, who picked up a third-round pick to move down just two spots. Both trade value charts agree with that assessment, as each has the Cowboys winning by a value equal to an early fourth-round pick.

Another trade to look at is the one that the Jets and Vikings made to help New York move up and select Alijah Vera-Tucker. Here are the details of that deal:

Jets receive:

• Round 1, Pick 14 (Vera-Tucker)
• Round 4, Pick 143 (traded to the Raiders)

Vikings receive:

• Round 1, Pick 23 (Christian Darrisaw)
• Round 3, Pick 66 (Kellen Mond)
• Round 3, Pick 88 (Wyatt Davis)

What does the trade value chart think about this deal for each team? It's considered to be pretty even, but once again, both models believe the team trading down, the Vikings, got the better value, as they beat the Jets in this deal by the value of a mid-to-late fourth-round pick.

As you can see, the trade value chart is immensely helpful in breaking down which teams have "won" trades. More often than not, it seems like it will be the team trading down, as those moving up in the first round often have to pay a premium to do so.