SPRING 2024

AUTHOR

Ari Nathanson, Dartmouth College

ABSTRACT

Building on the work of Cade Massey and Richard Thaler in 2005, this paper investigates changes and trends in the market for National Football League draft picks over the past 40 years. This period has seen significant advancements in the way NFL franchises approach the draft, including the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart, first employed by the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s. Still, many (including Massey and Thaler) argue that teams continue to significantly overvalue early draft picks. This paper uses a Weibull distribution to model the market value of picks based on their position and year. Looking at each ten-year window, this study generates “rolling” variables to represent trade frequency, market consensus, discount rate, and the rate at which pick value decreases as pick number increases. The graphs of these four variables inform the division of the 40-year period into distinct phases. The findings suggest some maturation of the trade market over time, characterized by more trading and lower discount rates. However, the value decay rate has fluctuated, without a clear downward trend. This paper highlights the complex interplay between innovation, tradition, strategy, and psychological biases in the NFL draft.