Jimmy Johnson's Draft Chart Is Obsolete

by Michael David Smith

By now most NFL fans know about the chart teams use to determine whether to trade draft picks. Jimmy Johnson and his staff came up with the chart when he was coach and general manager of the Cowboys, and it was ingenious: It allowed the Cowboys to quantify something that had previously been mostly guesswork.

But times have changed, the league now has a salary cap, and I think the chart is obsolete. That chart, for instance, says the first pick in the draft is worth three times as much as the 16th pick. That might be true if we don't take the salary cap into consideration, but when you remember how much of a drain on the salary cap the first pick is (Mario Williams signed a six-year, $54 million contract), the first pick isn't worth nearly that much.

There are lots of reports that teams near the top want to trade down (especially the Lions), but that those teams can't find trading partners. That's a sign that NFL teams are starting to realize that trading up isn't worth the cost.