The Charts Teams Use

The latest newsletter from KCSN Sports Data Scientist, Joseph Hefner

Bad planning. Poor time management. Lack of internalization of the NFL offseason schedule. Whatever the reason, I had planned on dropping this article two weeks ago, right after I’d written about the NFL draft day trades. However, the NFL schedule came out, and so I wrote a couple of different articles about that instead.

Now I’m back, because the question of what teams use which chart is actually a really good question, and one I get very often during the draft season. We know that there are several different trade charts that are popular. My own Trade Calculator app shows the values for several different charts, each of which has a unique purpose and function.

The Jimmy Johnson chart is the original trade chart. Jimmy Johnson and his team looked at historical trades that were happening in the NFL and essentially created a draft point chart where they mapped a point system onto the picks that were exchanged. This gives teams a numerical “value” for each pick and allows for fair trades. The Rich Hill chart is merely an updated version of the Jimmy Johnson chart that tries to account for changes in the NFL since the 90’s, and specifically the new CBA.

The Chase Stuart, Fitzgerald-Spielberger (OTC), and PFF charts all look at historical player outcomes based on the draft picks. Essentially (though there is much more nuance), they look at the outcomes of all players drafted with, say, pick 81. That average outcome becomes the expectation for all players picked with pick 81. Those averages are smoothed out, because massive outliers (like Tom Brady) can heavily skew a specific draft pick. Stuart uses Approximate Value to identify the player value outcomes. OTC uses second contract value, and PFF uses their proprietary Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric.

As you can see, there are two main questions being answered here, and they are different questions. The Jimmy Johnson and Rich Hill charts are answering the question “How much do I need to trade away to get pick X?” I call these two the “Trade Charts”. The other three charts are answering the question “How valuable is pick X?” I call these the “Player Value Charts”. Given that information, we should expect most teams to conform to the Jimmy Johnson or Rich Hill charts for trades the most.