At least two factors are conspiring to turn a top N.F.L. draft pick into a liability rather than a prize.
“A No. 1 N.F.L. draft pick may be one of the most overvalued assets in our society.”
The first is the rotten economy, which means that a team with a top pick will be compelled to spend a huge chunk of its budget just to sign an unproven quantity.
While the signing bonuses of N.F.L. picks aren’t set in stone, there are firm precedents that make for a predictable payout. Here’s a paper on the tax implications of an N.F.L. signing bonus, by one Andre Smith — but not, to be sure, this Andre Smith, who will probably score a nice payday in this weekend’s N.F.L. draft.
The second is the fact that top draft picks don’t seem to be helping teams all that much — or, put another way, teams that were already good keep winning Super Bowls without the benefit of top picks.
In light of that, consider this very interesting exchange between Sports Illustrated‘s Peter King and a reader named Matt:
Matt of Atlanta: “I think all the bad teams are desperate to move down in the draft, especially this year — but who’s going to trade up, even if the player has a chance to be better, if it costs two, three, maybe four times as much as your current pick? I think the reason we’ve had such a disparity in the 2000′s within the N.F.L. (e.g. 2008 winless Lions, 2007 unbeaten Patriots) is because the teams that make the playoffs are rewarded with better-valued draft choices. It’s unfair, period. Why is this not the main story from the media during this year’s draft?”
King: Brilliant point, Matt. The league has appointed a committee — with interested parties Tom Lewand of the Lions and Scott Pioli of the Chiefs, both of whom have picks in the top three of the draft — to study the problem of bad teams being penalized by the highest picks making so much money that it’s actually a penalty to pick in the top 10. The solution, I believe, is to give the bad teams a choice where they want to pick. That sounds insane, but why wouldn’t you allow the worst team to analyze the talent in the draft, and if there’s no player the club feels is worth the top pick, allow that team to pick sixth or eighth, for example.
Doesn’t sound insane to me at all. A No. 1 N.F.L. draft pick may be one of the most overvalued assets in our society, since he comes saddled with a mandatory signing bonus that is millions of dollars more than a late-first-round pick or an early-second-round pick. If someone wants him, go ahead and pay him. But if the poor Lions think they can do better by picking, say, tenth — well, wouldn’t that make things interesting?
(Hat tip: Etan Bednarsh)
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Bad teams already get to choose where they pick: Just let your clock run out, and the next team on the board gets to pick ahead of you. This happened to the Vikings (unintentionally) in 2003.
Tell the Colts the top pick in the draft wasn’t worth it.
Teams can already do that to some extent.
The lions could choose to let the clock run out, wait for a few other teams to pick & then draft when they are ready.
To further that point, the money paid to the unproven rookie may be more than a proven, in-his-prime veteran earns. For instance, an argument against picking Aaron Curry is that the slotted payment system would give him more money than any linebacker has ever been paid.
The concept of picking where you draft is actually possible in the draft today. Teams can let their time on the clock expire, and let the team behind them pick. This can happen for as many spots as the team would like to drop.
For example, let’s say the Lions think that the best value is the No. 6 spot. They can simply sit on their hands until that pick rolls around, then draft a player at that spot.
The Vikings did this a few years ago with a top 15 pick. I think they slid 2-3 spots down in the draft.
The thing is, they could do it already. They just have to let the time expire on their pick (hasn’t been done on “purpose” yet, though last year a team did let the time expire before they could make a choice). Then the next team will be up to pick and the first team just waits until they feel like picking. As far as I know, they can jump in whenever they want. So, if the Lions wanted to wait to pick till 5th or 6th, they just let their 1st pick timer run out and then let 4 teams pick and then pick who they want.
Granted, the agent for the player would try to get him a contract as a 1st pick (seeing as the Lions were supposed to pick 1st), but they would be able to counter that the player was selected at #5 and will be paid as much.
There has been a lot of talk saying the Lions should do it, though they probably won’t.
Letting the clock run isn’t a fool-proof plan for dropping down slots.
First, what if the top 3-4 teams all refuse to draft? Does anyone even know how that would work?
Second, when you let your clock run out, you’re then required to get your pick in before the other teams do, so you’ll have teams scrambling to get their picks in as soon as their turns come up. That seems like a poor way of doing things.
This post is crazy and based on a faulty assertion. If anything there has been MORE parity in the NFL since 2000! Hello, remember the NFL before the salary cap?
I’m a Lions fan and the reason they are a terrible team has nothing to do with having high draft picks. It has to do with the fact that they’ve had terrible player evaluation and have not marshalled their resources properly. Of course this is another way of saying that top drafting teams have the opportunity to squander greater value with top picks, but this doesn’t mean that the top pick is the problem.