For most fans, the NFL draft is entertaining. Fans get to expect for instant results, ask a lot of “what if?” questions, and are generally shocked by the outcome while teams are preoccupied with planning for the future.
Trades add to the excitement, particularly around the draft.
The majority of the NFL draft has been a letdown and fool’s gold for the Cleveland Browns and their supporters.
The majority of athletes never lived up to the selection slotting expectations. Fans were cheated out of premium players at premium positions by trades down from top picks for extra “bits at the apple”.
This is not to say that the Browns’ draft pick transactions have been poor, but they haven’t exactly worked out either.
Not only have they not been awful, but since 2023 Cleveland’s general managers have by far received the greatest value in pick-for-pick trades:
Here is the amount of draft value that each team has received or lost since 2023 as a result of pure pick-for-pick transactions (trades that do not involve moving any players) using the Fitzgerald-Spielberger draft chart values.
It is regrettable that Cleveland has had six different front office head coaches in 13 drafts, and another one is quickly approaching.
Winning transactions don’t matter if winning doesn’t also occur on the field shortly after winning those deals, as many of you reading have undoubtedly considered.
It’s interesting to see that on the graph above, five rather successful firms come after the Browns.
It supports the theory that while Cleveland’s general managers made excellent decisions overall, the decisions they matched them with weren’t successful.
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