Barnwell's NFL trade tiers: Who's worth a first-round pick? - ESPN

How many NFL players would return a first-round pick via trade?

I started thinking about this question last week, when I wrote my annual column consisting of trades that make sense for all parties involved. When I got to a swap for Minnesota's Danielle Hunter, I went back through history and found that single-season rental deals don't typically land first-rounders, even for talented edge rushers in or near the prime of their careers. As a player who is about to be a free agent and has a no-tag clause for 2024, Hunter was the definition of this kind of acquisition.

If Hunter wouldn't net a first-rounder, though, who would? Who would be worth two first-round picks? Three? Five? Seven? Ten? The vast majority of great NFL players aren't ever getting traded, but what would be fair value if they did? And how many players are actually worth first-rounders? About 13,000 words later, I found my answer: 102. That's roughly 6% of the league.

Because these players aren't going to be traded, I had to get a little creative with my logic. I treated salary cap charges and dead money as transferable in the way it would be in an expansion draft as opposed to the actual cap rules that apply when players get traded. We're considering what player value would look like in a vacuum as opposed to their specific spot on their specific roster.

The question I asked about every player was this: If an average team with an average roster had a hole at a given position, would history suggest it would trade an average first-round pick to acquire that player right now? I didn't consider whether the trading team would want to move that player, simply what his value would typically look like if that team did decide to make the trade. I did my best to use