Money Makes High Picks Tough to Deal

Mar 17, 2008, 5:50:30 AM by Bob Gretz - FAQ

The Chiefs like the Dolphins, Rams, Falcons and Raiders ahead of them at the top of the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft would love to trade out of those picks.

All of those teams need more help than one single player can provide. By trading down in the first round and picking up more draft choices, there’s more talent infused into the roster.

But finding another team to make a deal with these days is harder and harder because of the high-dollar contracts that go each year to the players selected with the top choices. It’s one thing to spend what’s necessary to move up in the order, whether it comes in veteran players or draft picks. It’s another thing to handle the financial load that goes with the highest choices.

“Trades are a unique thing in the first round anymore because of the cost of the top 10 picks financially,” Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian said several weeks ago during the NFL Scouting Combine. “To take on that cost, then to give up something to do so, it is almost counterintuitive and that’s clearly not what the draft was designed to be.”

Here’s the trading activity in the first round over the last five drafts:

As these numbers show, there’s still plenty of trading going on in the first half. It’s just that most of the deals are going down in the second half of the draft. In fact, the most popular choices in draft deals come from No. 21 through No. 27, where 18 picks have been dealt in the last five years.

The only top five choice that changed hands recently came in 2003, when the New York Jets dealt away the 13th and 22nd picks in the first round and a later choice to Chicago for the fourth pick. The Jets used that choice to select DT Dewayne Robertson out of the University of Kentucky. It’s safe to say at this point that the deal did not work out in the best interests of the Jets. Robertson is currently on the trade market; in fact a deal was in place with Cincinnati last week that fell through at the last minute.

Robertson is set to make $9.8 million in the 2008 season. This for a guy who has played in 76 games over five seasons and has produced 147 total tackles and 14.5 sacks. He’s been a good player, but certainly not a great one, that was worth a pair of first-round draft choices and a fourth-round pick.

Even trades into the top 10 picks have become unusual. Last year, the eighth and 10th choices were swapped in the deal between Houston and Atlanta that sent quarterback Matt Schaub to the Texans. In the 2005 season, the seventh pick went from the Raiders to the Vikings in the Randy Moss trade.

This landscape is very different than in the 10 years before the 2003 draft, when high draft picks were traded more frequently. Here are the numbers:

For comparison, look at what happened a decade ago. In the first-round of the 1997 Draft, three of the top five and six of the top 10 choices were traded. Orlando Pace, Darrell Russell, Shawn Springs, Walter Jones, James Farrior and Chris Naeole were all drafted by top 10 picks that changed hands.

That was then. Now, the Dolphins, Rams, Falcons, Raiders and Chiefs will have a hard time finding another team to trade up into their spots at the top of the drafting order.

And maybe that’s not so bad, because the Chiefs record of trading down in the first round is checkered at best. The same can be said for their ability to trade up.

Coming on Wednesday: what’s happened when the Chiefs have traded up in the first round.

The opinions offered in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the Kansas City Chiefs.

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A former beat reporter who covered the Pittsburgh Steelers during their glory years, Gretz covered the Chiefs for the Kansas City Star for nine years. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Board of Selectors. He has been the senior columnist for the Chiefs web site since its inception.