How the Cleveland Browns can beat the draft quarterback market

Any way this is sliced up, using reverse draft capital or reverse over-paying is extremely expensive. Over drafting a player first overall comes at an extreme cost to draft capital. If the Browns drafted the 16th overall ranked player first in the draft, they would lose 2,000 draft points. That number is significantly higher than the draft capital gained in both of last year’s draft trades (862 points).

Except the Rams paid 3,880 draft points for the first overall pick valued at 3,000. They then used that pick on a player ranked on Kiper’s 2016 final big board to be the 5th overall player whose draft value was 1,700 points.

The reverse draft capital used by the Rams to take Goff was 1,300 points. Adding the 880 points used to acquire the pick to the 1,300-point loss in the actual selection, means the Rams used 2,180 points of draft capital to acquire the first overall pick and draft the 5th overall ranked player.

Using the Rams 2,180 draft capital points as the basis of the quarterback market, for the Browns to beat the quarterback market from 2016 they would need to take a loss on less than 2,180 draft capital points to draft a quarterback. Per Johnson’s chart, to beat the quarterback market from last year, the Browns can draft a quarterback first overall who is ranked as low as 21st overall on Kiper’s big board.

The top-ranked quarterback on Kiper’s board is Trubisky at 16th overall. The Browns would expend a draft capital of 2,000 points to draft him first overall. This would beat the quarterback market as set by the Rams in 2016 by 180 draft points, or the 82nd (mid-third round) pick of the draft.

The Browns would beat the quarterback market set by the Rams, but would they beat the price the Eagles paid for the second overall pick?

The Eagles expended an excess of 623 draft capital points to acquire the Browns second overall pick. Once they acquired the pick, they used it to acquire the 7th overall ranked player on Kiper’s final 2016 draft board. The Eagles used 1,100 points of reverse draft capital to pick a quarterback.

Combining the price to acquire the pick combined with the loss of capital while making the selection, the Eagles used a combined 1,723 excess capital to acquire their quarterback.

For the Browns to beat the Eagles market price for acquiring a quarterback they need to draft a quarterback under the 1,723 net draft capital loss. However, the Browns pick value must be adjusted for the Eagles use of the 2nd overall pick compared to the first.

If the Browns started with the second overall pick they would lose an excess of 1,600 draft capital points to draft the highest ranked quarterback, per Johnson’s chart. In that scenario, the Browns would beat the quarterback market set by the Eagles in 2016 by 123 draft points, or a late third round pick.

Next: Browns year in review: The first quarter

By playing the draft market in reverse and calculating the market value of quarterbacks using reverse draft capital, the Browns can select Trubisky with the first overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft and still beat the 2016 NFL Draft quarterback market by an estimated late third-round draft pick.

Hopefully executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown paid attention during math class at Harvard.