Why trading out of the first round doesn’t happen as often as you’d think

Since the Kansas City Chiefs are picking near the end of the NFL Draft’s first round every season, the team is always out of position to acquire each draft’s top-end prospects.

This is not to say good players can’t be found in that range. But most NFL teams have players tiered in similar ways; after you get past the first 20 picks, there’s not a big difference between late first-round picks and most second-round picks. From a team’s point of view, there’s not a lot of value at the end of the first round.

For this reason, you’ll often hear suggestions that the right move is to trade out of the first round in exchange for more picks — particularly those from Day 2. In this way, contending teams picking late in the first round can get more surplus value.

Besides... the more picks that are available, the likelihood of getting quality players increases.

Trading out of the first round

But NFL history suggests that most teams don’t really operate this way. It’s actually fairly uncommon for teams to trade away their first-round picks.

Since the 2011 NFL Draft, there have been 15 such trades — just 5.3% of 283 total first-round picks — and only 1.25 trades each year.

We see here that one of the common conceptions about these trades — that teams will trade back into the first round to acquire quarterbacks for which they will have a fifth-year contract option — doesn’t really happen that often; it’s happened only twice in the last 12 years.

Since running backs are considered to have shorter shelf lives, is that a position where it might make sense for teams to get the fifth-year option? This would allow teams to keep a player for one more inexpensive year on a rookie contract. Yet the last time this happened was in 2012, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded up for running back Doug Martin.

During these 12 seasons, there’s really not much of a pattern. There have been three trade-ups for linebackers, but there have been only one (or two) trade-ups for any other position. It looks like teams make these decisions on a case-by-case basis — rather than go after fifth-year options for particular positions.

In fact, it appears that teams don’t value fifth-year options as much as is typically believed.

Fifth-year options, 2011-2018

During the eight-year period ending in 2018, only 65 of 255 first-round players — just one in four — actually played the fifth year on their rookie contracts.

About one in three got entirely new deals before their fifth season began (Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was such a player from the 2017 class).

But more than two in five first-round picks never made it as far as their fifth season. Some never had their fifth-year options exercised. Some (such as New York Giants cornerback Deandre Baker) were released even before then. Baker got another chance in Kansas City, but other players like him never played again. It’s another reminder that even first-round picks are not sure things in the NFL.

If you look only at the picks from 21st to 32nd overall, the differences are even more stark.

Fifth-year options (21-32), 2011-2018

Out of 95 first-round selections in that range, roughly the same proportion — about one in four — played on their fifth-year options. But even fewer — just one in five — got new contracts, while more than half didn’t make it to their fifth seasons.

This landscape will be changing. It used to be that teams could exercise a fifth-year option and still be able to cut a player following their fourth season — but starting with 2020’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, fifth-year options became fully guaranteed when exercised. So now, teams must be pretty sure about a player before picking up that option.

Still, the history of fifth-year options isn’t great. Most players — especially those picked at the end of the first round — don’t pan out. While the option has some value, most teams prefer to simply give good players new contracts — with which short-term cap hits can be better controlled.

The bottom line

With the world champion Chiefs once again picking at the end of the first round, there’s going to be a lot of talk about trading back. When Kansas City picked running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire after its 2020 Super Bowl win, general manager Brett Veach revealed the team was interested in accumulating more picks, but no team had sought to trade up.

The Chiefs will be in a similar position following their most-recent championship run. Veach would probably love to accumulate more early-round picks, but history suggests that these trades don’t happen all that often — and when they do, it’s generally not because teams want a fifth-year option on a draft prospect they’re targeting.

A trade back would be nice — but it’s more likely the Chiefs will select a player with the 31st pick.