Mock Draft Tips: Do you have enough assets to trade up? And should you!?

As part of an occasional series, Fanspeak will offer tips and best practices for its wildly popular and first-of-its-kind On The Clock draft simulator.

Today’s topic: What it takes to trade up in the draft.

You covet Isaiah Simmons.

After watching the Clemson junior dominate opposing defenses the past three seasons, the thought of him wreaking havoc for your favorite team has you dreaming of future playoff wins. Heck, forget playoffs. Now you have Super Bowl aspirations.

Then Simmons runs a lightning-fast 4.39 40 during the Combine, which puts him in the 99^th percentile among linebackers, according to MockDraftable. And his broad jump (98th percentile) and vertical (93rd percentile) now puts him in elite company.

Translation: The 6-foot-4, 238-pound linebacker/safety hybrid is unlikely to fall to your spot in the draft.

“Well, I can fix that,” you say. “I can trade up!”

Trading up is easy when you’re using Fanspeak’s On The Clock NFL draft simulator (trades are allowed for premium subscribers).

Trade four future first-round picks to move up? Sure!

In reality, giving up assets – especially multiple first-round picks – can cause people to lose their jobs if the trade sinks the team into a hole so deep that it takes years to dig out of.

Nonetheless, teams take that risk and trade up all the time (a record 40 draft-day trades made last year, for example).

So if you really want to draft Simmons, Chase Young, Derrick Brown or Jeffrey Okudah, then you need to be armed with enough trade assets.

Next, you need to calculate what such a move would take.

To do that, draft analysts and GMs alike still use the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart or some variation of it (it should actually be called the Mike McCoy Trade Value Chart.)

So, using that chart, let’s take a look at three teams selecting after pick No. 15 who could be interested in trading up for either Simmons, Brown or Okudah and what those teams would have to give up.

What we know going into the draft

Start with the known factors, and in this case, there are only two:

• LSU’s Joe Burrows will go No. 1 overall.
• Ohio State’s Chase Young will be the first non-quarterback selected, which puts him in the range of picks 2 to 5.

There are a few other factors to consider, such as:

• Trading up to the No. 2 overall spot is the only way to ensure your team drafts Young. However, the only reason a team would bypass the start Ohio State defensive end would be because it needs one of the elite quarterbacks, so Young is likely unreachable for most teams.
• The New York Giants tend to stay pat, especially in recent years, and will likely keep the No. 4 spot.

You also have to favor in the QB situation, as in, who needs one and how many could go in the top 5.

• Cincinnati, Washington, Los Angeles (Chargers), Miami, Carolina and Denver need a quarterback or have at least considered taking one with a high first-round pick.
• At least four QBs will be drafted in the first round: Burrow, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa, Oregon’s Justin Herbert and Utah State’s Jordan Love; the first three make up the “top tier,” while Love is essentially the lone QB in the second tier.
• Two of those QB-needy teams will have to settle for one of the third-tier QBs: Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, Georgia’s Jake Fromm, Washington’s Jacob Eason or Washington State’s Anthony Gordon.

Therefore, regardless of future trades, the only way you can ensure your team will draft high enough to select either Simmons, Brown or Okudah, you have to trade up to pick No. 6 overall, currently owned by the Chargers.

The teams

You can use the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart to figure out the trades manually, or you can use CalculatorSoup, which uses the same chart but takes care of the calculations for you. Drafttek also publishes a good trade chart, the Rich Hill Model.

For this exercise, we’ll use the Jimmy Johnson chart and these three teams:

• Dallas, pick No. 17: lost CB Byron Jones in free agency; needs a starting CB and upgrades and potential starters at safety and linebacker
• Jacksonville, pick No. 20: traded away Jalen Ramsey but has plenty of draft capital, including two first-round picks
• Philadelphia, pick No. 21: needs a WR, but this is a deep draft at that position; recently traded for Pro Bowl CB Darius Slay but likely still wants to upgrade the secondary; needs a safety after losing Malcolm Jenkins in free agency, could also be interested in taking a linebacker

Going strictly by the trade chart

Still want Simmons, Jacksonville fans? Can’t live without Okudah if you’re Dallas? Is Philadelphia desperate to pair Okudah with Slay or add a chess piece in Simmons?

Here’s what it will take for those teams to move up to the sixth-overall pick. (Note: To calculate trading away a future pick, give it the same value as the last pick of a respective round, non-adjusted for compensatory picks. For example, if you want to swap first-round picks and include next year’s first (or multiple firsts, then include the No. 32 pick in your calculations. If you want to include a future third-round pick, then it would be pick No. 96.)

• Dallas: The team would have to trade too many assets unless it includes future picks. So the trade that makes the most sense has Dallas sending this year’s first-, fourth- and next year’s first-rounder to move up 11 spots to No. 6.
• Jacksonville: Trades its first, first-rounder (pick No. 9) and third-round picks to swap picks at No. 6.
• Philadelphia: Even with three fourth-round picks, the price would be too steep unless they included picks next year. So the trade would be the team’s first- and third-round picks this year and its first- and third-round picks next year to move up to No. 6.

By this example, Jacksonville has the easiest path, but that’s because it used its highest first-round pick, No. 9 overall, to move up. Still, giving up a third-round pick is a pretty steep price to move up three spots.

The Dallas trade that includes giving up next year’s first is intriguing in that Dallas has shown a willingness to trade up in the draft and to trade away future first-rounders. Plus, Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network said Dallas is interested in drafting one of the top Ohio State players, presumably Okudah.

The Philadelphia trade isn’t too outlandish, but it would also require the Eagles giving up a lot of good assets. It also means that, assuming the team uses pick No. 6 to take Jeffrey Okudah – if he’s still available – then it must find a walk-in starter at wide receiver in the second round, plus, barring free agency, the soonest it could find a safety would be in the fourth round.

But my team gave up way less!

Every team uses a draft chart, but you still see some head-scratching trades.

Let’s look at two trades and compare them to the Jimmy Johnson chart.

In 2012, Dallas traded its first- and second-round picks to the Los Angeles Rams to move up eight slots to the No. 6 overall pick, taking LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne.

Dallas fans and media alike howled at the time, saying that was too much to give up. But, going by the draft chart, Dallas actually came away as the slight winner in that trade purely from an assets-to-assets perspective.

And then there was the Kansas City blockbuster in 2017 in which the Chiefs traded its first-round pick at No. 27 overall, its third-round pick and its 2018 first-rounder to move up with Buffalo, which owned the No. 10 pick.

Again, strictly going by the trade chart, Kansas City gave up too much, but they were willing to pull the trigger on the trade if it ensured they’d get their quarterback of the future, which turned out to be Texas Tech’s Pat Mahomes.

Our recommendation

When drafting with On The Clock, the trade chart is a great starting point when it comes to deciding whether to trade up to take a player you feel your team must have.

In reality, though, your team might have to give up more assets than the chart shows, especially if you get into a bidding war. The higher the move-up, the riskier it is for the long-term health of your team.

That’s because there are no consequences for giving up assets when using the draft simulator. For NFL GMs, though, they have to decide if the player they’re moving up to take is worth giving up most of their best draft capital.

The strategy worked like a charm for the Super Bowl champion Chiefs. The Cowboys, meanwhile, are 25 years past its last Super Bowl win and still searching for a long-term answer at cornerback.

Jake Rigdon covers the NFL draft for Fanspeak. He can be reached at jake@sydwriting.com.