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cool_hand_luke
I think you always select the best player in the draft. The value you gain from having a good player on a rookie is so high. But take a situation where you have 8-10 guys making over ten million on your cap. This might be a time to go for quantity in the draft as opposed to picking 25th or so. Trading down allows a team to select more rookie deal players who then take the spot of veterans who have higher minimum deals.
One thing I've noticed though is the Rams especially target a small number of players in the draft. They seem to go into the draft with 3 guys they really want and estimate where they will go and position themselves in the spot to take them. For example, Everett and Rapp. They passed on a lot of good players to specifically grab those two guys. Not saying they made a mistake just it adds some complexity to the best player vs need discussion.
I do believe that there is a point at which a team is making the correct decision to sacrifice quality of play for a lower cap number. Is Khalil Mack that much better than Nick Bosa/Josh Allen/Brian Burns to justify his cap number? Same with Donald and an Ed Oliver/Q.Williams. Not arguing either side but doing the analysis and determining where the breaking point is would be fun.
I think you always select the best player too but to me that doesn't mean that trading down isn't sometimes the best idea. If 'always select the best player' is taken literally that means always trading up to get the absolute best player you could get would be a consistently great strategy but my guess is we both agree it's not.
I think there have been several studies done on the draft which have concluded that trading down and getting "more shots at the basket" as Snead put it this year is the smartest strategy over time. The odds of a hit from the 2 or 3 players were higher than the odds of hitting on the one higher drafted player.
I agree with you on the Rams approach in that they target specific players and position themselves in the spot to take them. IMO, that approach moves the discussion away from pure BPA or need. It's both! For example, this year they moved to a place where Taylor Rapp - a need - was also the highest value on the board.
In the meantime you get extra draft assets to move up and get a Henderson who is also simultaneously a need and BPA on their board in the range they drafted him.
This quality versus quantity analysis only applies if we're talking about draft pick versus draft pick.
IMO, the equation changes when you're talking about an established elite player versus a draft pick. I don't know if there is a point where a Donald versus an Ed Oliver/Q.Williams is not worth it from a cap perspective. Maybe in theory we could reach that point if we're analyzing a really good player (for example Cooks) versus a draft pick but even then you've got to keep in mind that all draft picks have inherent risk because they are unproven.
But if you're a contending team and we're talking about an elite player or a QB, you never entertain sacrificing quality until their done. Unless you're rebuilding like Oakland.
