Yikes Jim Moore Agrees with me

[Donn Beach]

you can't assume it, you do you best but its just a guess. Its very similar to stock picking, you can do your research and decide who you like, but betting on a particular player is risky. That is kind of the point, GMs that think they can pick who the best player available is, fall in love with a particular player. That is, trading draft picks because you think x edge rusher is going to be better than z edge rusher. Again, it can be done, they have done it a couple times and won. But that comment Moore makes, something along the lines, that its a given that moving up in a draft gets you a better player, no I do not believe its a given. Sure if you move from the 3rd round to the first, but that takes a heck of a lot of capital. And moving from the 20th to the fifteenth i think is risky in terms of expecting to get a better player

[Donn Beach]

I think it has to do with the need to rank, like the first, second, third, fourth best WR. That becomes significant when we think about drafting, who the heck wants the fourth best WR? Lets move up and get the best! But i don't know if it works that way, that sort of separation. The scouting depends so much on physical characteristics and then trying to project them. That goes particularly with linemen doesn't it, the difficulty in projecting them. I think that is why JS tends to trade down as opposed to trading up, he doesn't focus on particular players that way

[Donn Beach]

that is the point they made in their paper....moving up to try and pick winners is risky, like i said, its getting kind of old, adjustments have probably been made, but that is the jist of the argument

In last year's NFL draft, the Buffalo Bills traded up from the eighth pick to the fourth to take receiver Sammy Watkins. To do so, they gave up their first pick this year, 19th overall.

Watkins has had a solid start to his career. But the receiver the Bills could've taken if they'd stayed put — Odell Beckham Jr. — was named Offensive Rookie of the Year and already looks to be a generational talent.

TEAMS SHOULD NEVER TRADE UP — AND SHOULD TRADE DOWN WHENEVER THEY GET AN OFFER

It's always easy to pick apart draft decisions in retrospect. But this mistake was utterly predictable — and it remains a mistake whether Watkins ends up a better player than Beckham or not.

A series of papers by economists Cade Massey and Richard Thaler has shown that at any given position, historically, the odds of the top player picked (Watkins) being better than the third player picked (Beckham) is just 55 percent or so.

"It's basically a coin flip," Massey, who serves as a draft consultant with several NFL teams, told me last year, "but teams are paying a great deal for the right to call which side of the coin."

Because teams just aren't that good at evaluating a player's chance of success, Massey and Thaler's analysis says in the current trade market, teams are better off trading down whenever they get an offer — that is, trading one high pick for multiple lower ones, in order to diversify risk. But many teams, like the Bills, become overconfident in their evaluation of one particular player and do the opposite: they package several slightly lower picks for the right to take one player very early.

[57reasons]

much as i love to pretend it's not, the draft pretty much is a crapshoot. Remember Aaron Maybin, Vernon Gholston, and Kevin White? all cant miss physical freaks who didnt do squat. Then there's Sean Taylor, the all world Safety picked #5 by the Redskins? Even when scouts do get it right like in his case, your investment can still get derailed by a random act of violence.
that said, I'd trust Schneider picking in the top 20 a lot more than him picking 25-30. Was so frustrated with the pass on Sweat last year, then dropped it when they signed Ziggy, now back to mad again.