What would it *actually* cost the Giants to move up to No. 1 in the draft?

Maybe too much…or not as much as we thought

Last week I wrote about the recent history of teams moving up into the top 3 to draft a quarterback and how well those moves worked out. (As a refresher, the QBs that were targeted in those trade-ups were Eli Manning – sort of, Robert Griffin III, Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Darnold, Trey Lance, and Bryce Young.). Overall, that is not exactly a stirring endorsement for taking the plunge.

Teams continue to try, though, and it’s not far-fetched that the New York Giants may be one of them this spring. Blame Malik Nabers – if he hadn’t had 171 receiving yards and 2 TDs vs. the Colts back in December, Cam Ward would already be getting fitted for his Giants uniform. In the real world, though (as if football is the real world), the Giants will have to give up draft assets to have any reasonable chance of getting him.

Ed is showing us the results of different mocks, several done by him and several done by others, that lead to Ward becoming a Giant. Let’s ignore mocks in which Ward just drops to the Giants at 3 and assume that someone is taking Ward with the No. 1 pick and just ask what it would take for that someone to be the Giants. (If you’re a Shedeur Sanders fan instead, that’s fine – this post has nothing to do with the specific player taken at No. 1.)

Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap has approached that question, for both the Giants and the New York Jets, objectively, by calculating the actual value of the picks given up to move up into the top 10 in previous trade-ups that actually occurred. He uses the trade value chart that he developed along with Brad Spielberger a few years ago to put a number value on trade assets exchanged. Here’s what the chart looks like:

Courtesy of Over The Cap

The F-S chart uses actual salaries of second contracts of players drafted over the 2011-2015 period as an objective indicator of how valuable each pick turned out to be using the only metric that is relevant – how much money a team was willing to give that player in a new contract after having seen him play in the NFL for four or five years. The results are grouped by position and individual players normalized to the top five contracts at their position to create a relative measure of player value.

Then, Fitzgerald used seven instances of trade-ups in recent years to see how much the “cost” in value of trade assets was given up by the team moving up:

Courtesy of Over The Cap

Looking at all the trades, we can see that on average about 3,000 excess draft points was given up to the get the trading-down team to make the deal. According to the trade value chart, that is about the value of the No. 1 pick. However, the range of results is 2,055-3,776. Partly that is because human beings are involved in making these decisions. Mainly, though, it’s because the size and destination of each jump differed from one trade to another.

Let’s group them by destination:

Trade-ups to No. 1:

• Goff (Rams moved from No. 15 to No. 1): 2,991 points
• Young (Panthers moved from No. 9 to No. 1): 2,437 points + D.J. Moore (~1,389 points as a No. 24 pick) ~ 3,826 points

Trade-ups to No. 2:

• RG III (Washington moved from No. 6 to No. 2): 3,776 points
• Wentz (Eagles moved from No. 8 to No. 2): 3,041 points
• Trubisky (Bears moved from No. 3 to No. 2): 2,055 points

Trade-ups to No. 3:

• Lance (49ers moved from No. 12 to No. 3): 3,267 points
• Darnold (Jets moved from No. 6 to No. 3): 2,885 points

There is no exact precedent for what the Giants may be trying to do. The closest is the 2017 trade-up by Chicago from No. 3 to No. 2 for Mitch Trubisky (and it could have been Mahomes or Watson), so let’s set a floor higher than 2,055 points on a trade-up from No. 3 to No. 1. The two trade-ups to No. 1 cost 2,991 and 3,826 points, but both of those were from a starting point much lower in the draft. The Panthers paid a bigger price to move up fewer places than the Rams did in 2016. (Fitzgerald argues that Moore’s value was only that of a second or third-round pick and so puts the total price at about 3,300 points.) For that matter the Eagles paid a bigger price in that same draft to only move from No. 8 to No. 2. The bottom line is that roughly 3,000 points is a ceiling on what the Giants should pay.

Of course since the Jets probably want to move up, too, the Titans can get a bidding war going between the two prisoners of MetLife, which would throw all this out the window. The Giants do have an extra card to play, though – Tennessee only has to move down to No. 3 in a trade with the Giants, vs. a drop to No. 7 in a trade with the Jets (or No. 6 if Las Vegas is also in the market to trade up). If Tennessee likes Travis Hunter and Abdul Carter, then the Giants are the team they want to do business with.

Fitzgerald argues that a 3,000 point premium is the target for the Giants to aim for, though I’d call it an upper limit. That means roughly giving up, in addition to No. 3, No. 34 and 2026 first and third-round picks. That’s a lot.

For what it’s worth the Pro Football Focus mock draft simulator thinks that’s way too high a price for the Giants to pay:

Their algorithm thinks that simply giving up a third this year and a second next year should be enough to probably get a deal done:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

In the Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart’s reckoning, though, that’s only a net gain of 1,366 draft points, far below what recent trade-ups have cost.

The Pro Football Network mock draft simulator has other ideas. Here’s what they say the Giants propose to Tennessee to move up to No. 1:

Courtesy of Pro Football Network

That’s 3,225 points worth of excess draft assets in the Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart, much closer to what Fitzgerald suggests in his article. It eviscerates the rest of this year’s draft for the Giants, making them cool their heels until the Xavier McKinney bottom of the fourth round comp pick rolls around. On the plus side, they don’t lose their 2026 1st round pick.

However, when I play Joe Schoen and balk at that and counter-offer only as much as what PFF says has a 71% chance of getting the deal done, indeed, the PFN-Titans accept it (and the algorithm’s PFN-Giants coincidentally use the No. 1 pick on Ward):

Courtesy of Pro Football Network

That’s two independent algorithms reaching the same conclusion. Is it really true that the Giants could move up to No. 1 for only this year’s third and next year’s second? To me, that is not too much to pay. In the real NFL, maybe factors such as the Titans having their eye on Hunter or Carter come into play and they decide that in a down year for quarterback prospects, getting a third and a future second while still having a crack at one of the two best players in the draft is a deal worth making, and that the Giants are the only ones who can guarantee that for them.

We’ll see on, or shortly before, April 24.