(03-18-2018, 01:51 PM)SeldomRite Wrote:

(03-18-2018, 11:16 AM)Bullseye Wrote: You indicated at the end of paragraph #1 that "all we can do is look at what the results were."  I agree completely.  I think there are two objective results based standards we should examine in evaluating these trades down, based upon the context of the discussion.

• Did the team trading down get a deal equal to or better than the Colts deal yesterday?  The whole purpose of the thread was to address the lament that the Jaguars don't get deals like this.  If the team trading down did not get a comparable deal, the trade down can't be in any way persuasive.
  
• The second line of inquiry should be whether the teams trading down, assuming they got comparable deals to the Colts deal yesterday, got any further than the Jaguars in the time since the trade.  To quote Herm Edwards, "Hello?!?  You play to win the game!"
  

With these two objective criteria established, let me address your points.

1.  First, the 2014 NFL draft had only two trades in the top ten of that draft, not three.  Cleveland traded from 4 to Buffalo's pick at 9.  Then Cleveland traded back up to 8 with Minnesota.  http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/0ap200000...-the-moves.  Now in looking at the terms of the Cleveland-Buffalo trade, to move down 5 spots and switch places with Buffalo, the Bills gave the Browns a 2015 first round pick and a 2015 4th round pick.  Because the trade involved a future first round pick and a 4th, let's call it comparable to the Colts deal from yesterday.  The second line of inquiry is whether, in the time since this trade, have the Browns advanced any further than the Jaguars?   Since that 2014 trade down, the Browns have finished 7-9, 3-13, 1-15, and 0-16.  While the three seasons between 2014 and 2016 haven't exactly been smashing successes for the Jaguars, last year saw the Jaguars reach the AFC championship game, being only 2:37 away from reaching the Super Bowl.  By the time the players involved from that trade reached their prime years, the Browns and Jaguars could not be further apart.  Applying this standard to the second trade, Minnesota only got a 5th round pick by moving down one spot with Cleveland, so that trade fails the first criteria.

2.  Since, by your own admission, there were no trades at the top of the 2015 draft, there's not much in the way of examining the objective, results based criteria.  However, since the Jaguars pick at #3 put them below the much desired top two picks, one could surmise there was no team willing to offer the Jaguars a deal comparable to or better than the Colts deal yesterday.  Viewed slightly differently, since that draft had two potential franchise signal callers in Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, we could reasonably assume there had to have been offers for those picks too, ostensibly more lucrative than whatever offers we may have had for pick 3, and perhaps equal to or better than the Colts deal down yesterday.  But note neither Tampa nor Tennessee traded down from those picks despite the offers they could have had.  Is it possible, then, to conclude there are circumstances under which accepting a trade down, even a very lucrative offer, is not advisable?  Keep reading.

3.  In 2016, the Browns traded down from #2 overall with Philadelphia to #8 overall.  In exchange for the 2nd overall pick and a 4th rounder thrown in, the Browns received the #8 overall pick, a 2016 3rd round pick, a 2016 4th round pick, a 2017 first round pick, and a 2018 2nd round pick.  Considering the picks the Browns received included a future first and a future second, we'll say they got a better deal than the Colts received yesterday.  The Browns traded back again from #8 to #15, and got a 2016 3rd round pick and a 2017 second round pick for their trouble.  That trade was not comparable to what the Colts received.  But as to the 2nd objective criteria, I refer back to the bottom of my answer to paragraph 1.  The tacks also traded down in the first round in 2016. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000...rom-titans  Given the consideration received, you could say that deal too was comparable to what the Colts received yesterday.  But based on the second criteria, the titans did not advance further than the Jaguars did since that trade was made.  While the tacks did have two 9-7 seasons and reached the playoffs in 2017 while the Jaguars only had one winning season, the Jaguars did pass the tacks during that time, winning a division title and reaching the AFC championship game.  The tacks have not advanced any further than the Jaguars since that trade.  Back to my closing question from 2.  You have acknowledged you don't blame Caldwell for standing pat when Ramsey is on the board.  While I could easily stop the examination here, let's look at Cleveland, who traded down twice.  They missed out on QB Carson Wentz and T Jack Conklin.   What are their two biggest offensive holes?  QB and T.  What has been their record since making those two trades down?  1-31.  Moral of the story?  Sometimes it's best NOT to trade down even if you receive lucrative deals to do so.

4.  Yes, there was a top 10 trade after the Jaguars picked in 2017.  Buffalo traded the #10 overall pick to Kansas City, in exchange for the 25th overall pick, a 2017 3rd round pick, and a 2018 first round pick.  Considering the Colts got a 1 and 3 second round picks, including 2 this year, for moving down three spots, you could argue the Colts trade down was more lucrative than what the Bills got for moving down 15 last year, but for the purposes of this discussion, we'll call the trades a push.  Since the trade, have the Bills advanced further than the Jaguars?  No.  In fact, the Jaguars knocked the Bills out of the playoffs this year.
 
Looking objectively, the teams that traded down and got deals comparable to what the Colts got went no further than the Jaguars did, who accomplished that without trading down from their top 5 draft positions at all.

I don't think looking at overall team success is the best way to gauge trade success.

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But it does speak to the overall effectiveness of the overall draft strategy, which encompasses decisions to trade/not to trade.

Quote: I think the best way to gauge trade success is to look at how many players drafted closely after the spot that was traded back to went on to have success. There's a lot of reasons teams can be bad, consistently picking bad players regardless of draft position is one of them. The point I make regarding trades is that if you can get more value out of a trade than you'll get by sticking where you are and taking a guy that isn't better than the next x number of guys in the draft order then you should make the trade, and the Aaron Donald/ODB draft was an excellent example of it. Bortles might still turn out to be good QB, but he sure doesn't look like he's going to be an elite QB at this point in his career, and Caldwell is supposed to be getting paid millions to know who is going to be great and who is going to be marginal.

Every year there are players that are lower in the draft order that end up more successful than players taken higher in the draft order, even by teams that traded down and accumulated multiple picks.  Furthermore, your proposed standard does not take into account the career of the player you could have taken at the higher spot.   Example:  In 1990, Pittsburgh traded down from the 17th spot to the 21st spot.  The Steelers wound up with TE Eric Green out of Liberty, who went on to two Pro Bowls.  Furthermore, in the 4th round of that same draft, they nabbed RB Barry Foster, who went to two Pro Bowls of his own, and on top of it wound up being named 1st team All Pro.  Using your standard at face value, that was a successful trade for the Steelers, right?  Who could they have taken at 17?  Well, Dallas was the team that traded up from 21 to 17.  They took some guy named Emmitt Smith.

Caldwell is getting paid a handsome salary to know who is going to be great and who is going to be marginal.  I'd say he's done a fantastic job despite never trading down from the first round, and to prove it, I will repeat my challenge from the first page of this thread.

Since 2013 when Caldwell arrived, there have been teams who have traded down in the first round and gotten a bunch of picks in return for doing so.  Some of the picks obtained in return for trading down were even spread over multiple years.  Name one of those teams that has gotten three players the caliber of Caldwell's 2016 draft of Ramsey, Jack and Ngakoue in the aftermath of their trades down, either in one year or over the lifetime of the trade's terms.  (meaning if a team traded down in 2016 and received picks in 2016, 17, and 18 as a result of that trade, any three players taken within that span that are equal or better quality than Ramsey, Jack and Ngakoue).

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