One exercise I like to do is to look at the NFL draft picks the way a commodity trader. Did the team get value with their pick. This is not an analysis of if it was a good pick on the grand scheme, or team need fit, or anything of the sort. It is a rudimentary exploration of, how did the pick compare to consensus value.

To do this, I run a very simple chart, tracking draft pick and their consensus ranking, which uses hundreds of ratings and mocks to form a wisdom of the crowd ranking. There of more complicated and, admittedly probably more accurate ways to view this as commodities. I could probably do a draft pick vs consensus difference and then weight the average and blah blah blah (math nerd alert). But I’m not taking the time to do that. I say that because I’m trying to write up some high school sports while updating this as we go.

Again, this does not identify exhaustively who the best players and fits were. An example from the top of the draft: Caleb Williams’ draft value is 1.00. That is because he was the consensus number one and went number one. Not much to gleam from that as much as value. Drake Maye was number two on the big board. I personally disagree with that, but there he was. He went three, giving him a 1.50 value. That does not mean Maye was a better pick. Far from a perfect system, I know. But it is also not without value when grading a team’s draft and how they are spending their draft “dollars”.

It is a little weird for me seeing the Raiders in the top four of a first round draft value chart. I didn’t mind that early QB run at all, pushing some top 10 talent down. Speaking of the QB run, notice the bottom two in the below chart, Bo Nix and Michael Penix Jr. Teams reach for QBs. This year was not exception. The surprising part was one of the teams was not in desperate need of one.

Round 1

Round 2

Quick look at round 2. The Lions and Eagles again getting value, and both doing so in the exact same way, drafting falling cornerbacks for the second round in a row. The Eagles got Mitchell and DeJean, both in the top 18 of the big board. The Lions got Arnold and Rakestraw, two of the top 38. The Commanders had three picks here, and got good value with two of them. The Raiders once again score well, getting the 30th ranked player at 44. Two picks in a row that were not reaches? Who is this team? The Colts got an on-field stud who did not do well in the interview process, reportedly. Boom/bust guy there?

At the bottom, the Falcons and Titans find themselves in the bottom three for the second round in a row.