Oftentimes, as draft season begins, fans debate how their favorite team should approach the draft, and the term “best player available” (BPA) often comes up. Fans and analysts often say their team should stop trying to address positional needs and instead draft the “best player available” from top to bottom. I can’t stand this argument because it simply doesn’t address the draft’s complexity and how much positional value, roster construction, and scheme fit can influence a player’s development. Instead, the goal should be to draft the most valuable player available. Many factors go into determining that value, and this year’s draft class is a great example.
Using this year’s draft as an example, my top two players in the class are Ohio State safety Caleb Downs and Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love. If you went off the strategy of draft BPA, these two guys would be locks to go in the top five. But this is not going to happen, and I would argue that while each of these two players is uber-talented, neither should go in the top five for a wide variety of reasons.
Let’s start with the financial side of things, a part of the draft that is often overlooked, but is very relevant, especially in this conversation about draft value. Let’s assume your team is picking fifth overall. Selecting Jeremiyah Love would result in your team giving him a contract that would make him the 5th highest paid RB in the NFL, before he even took a snap in professional football. For Downs, that contract would make him the 10th-highest-paid safety in the league, which is defensible, but is something that a lot of NFL GMs will want to steer clear of, especially with rookies who have never played a snap in the NFL.
*Kyle Pitts is CURRENTLY the 12th highest paid TE in the NFL, and that is 5 years after he was selected in the 2021 draft*
This argument also holds for other positions, like linebacker, where the fifth pick would be the 8th-highest-paid LB in the league; guard, where they would be the 9th-highest-paid; and tight end, where they would be the 7th-highest-paid. This shows up year after year, and after the draft, you often hear people say that some team should not have reached for a “high value position” and taken the best player available. Guys like Bijan Robinson, Kyle Hamilton, and Brock Bowers have proven to be some of the best players from their class, but the question of whether those guys should have gone higher in their respective classes is highly debatable.
Just last year, the Raiders made Ashton Jeanty the seventh-highest-paid running back in the NFL, but he struggled this year because of the lack of depth all across the rest of the Raiders roster. If the argument was that teams should take the “best player availible” are you willing to stake 45 million dollars into a running back with no experience in the league? While I would argue that these guys like Downs, Styles and Love are the best players in the draft, and are some of the safest players in the class, at the end of the day this is still a rookie draft and there is a real chance these guys struggle in the NFL, and teams will not (and should not) invest that much capital in those areas as there simply is not as much VALUE despite those players being the best avialible.
I would argue that of all these low-value positions, safety is the most important and is one I would be willing to invest somewhat significant capital in, especially with Downs being my number one player in the draft. Also, in some of these other positions, there is a depth of talent across the league, such as running back, where 17 players went over 1,000 yards, and 45 went over 500. Some positions in the NFL are simply more replaceable. Just look at the offensive tackles who will be available in free agency vs the running backs who will be available. I would feel much more confident that I can find a starting running back through the free agent market, whereas I would not feel that confident about positions like EDGE or OT.
That is part of what makes this year’s draft so interesting, as we will really get to see how much NFL teams value each position and how willing they are to risk taking higher-value players at the top of the draft. This year’s class has only one true top QB prospect and is thin at other positions, such as EDGE, OT, and IDL, which means NFL teams will have to change how they evaluate prospects. For some perspective, this is the cap ceiling I would be willing to use for each top prospect at some of these lesser-valued positions in the NFL…
Caleb Downs – Fifth overall
Sonny Styles – Seventh overall
Jeremiyah Love – Eighth overall
Kenyon Sadiq – Fifteenth overall
All this to say: stop getting upset when your team does not take “the best player available”; instead, be aware of where the value is in the draft. Landing a star at any position is great, but being able to add a starting tackle through the draft simply has more impact than if you add a starting linebacker. It is okay to be upset when your team reaches for a player at a position of need, but you MUST factor in how valuable these positions are in the NFL, and why they are also more valuable in the draft.
