Grading trades during 2023 NFL draft: Biggest deals for players, picks - ESPN

We'll find out who won the draft day trade in three or four years, they say. Nonsense!

NFL general managers don't have the benefit of hindsight when it comes to making trades — why should we when evaluating those trades? We're grading these draft day deals immediately, based on the information available — just like the teams are doing.

To evaluate these deals, we'll be relying heavily on our Approximate Value-based draft pick value calculations, along with important factors such as positional value, salary cap implications, veteran player impact and short- and long-term team outlook.

Trades during the draft can be enormously consequential and can set the direction for a franchise for years to come, so don't sleep on the importance of faring well here.

We'll update this page with deals as they come in throughout the draft.

Houston Texans get: 2023 first-round pick (No. 3), 2023 fourth-round pick (No. 105)Arizona Cardinals get: 2023 first-round pick (No. 12), 2023 second-round pick (No. 33), 2024 first-round pick, 2024 third-round pick

Texans grade: C-Cardinals grade: A-

The best thing a team can do to fast-track a rebuild is to take a first-round quarterback without having to trade up. It's a gift the Texans were given when they took C.J. Stroud at the No. 2 overall pick. In fact, they had one better — an additional first-round pick in this year's draft. But by trading up, they squandered a lot of the surplus value they had accumulated.

NFL teams are regularly overconfident in their ability to assess prospects, and the result is a trade market that punishes teams that trade up for non-quarterbacks. According to ESPN's AV-based draft value calculations, Houston is surrendering the equivalent of a top-10 pick in extra value