COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new analysis suggests there is no correlation between athlete performance and the way the NFL values draft positions, challenging long-held beliefs about how professional football teams select new players each year.
Researchers found that higher-drafted players did not perform significantly better than lower-drafted ones, especially those chosen during the same round.
These findings were revealed by analyzing NFL draft data over a 10-year period and comparing information such as player draft position, value chart rating and rookie salaries with real-life performance statistics from their first four years in the league.
Results showed that predictors of player performance based on order of draft selection in early rounds had no relationship to actual performance and career length for players chosen in the 4th and 5th rounds. Researchers also saw a distinct advantage in player performance for teams trading down for draft picks compared to those trading up for draft picks, contrary to the way the NFL currently values draft positions.
The NFL draft consists of seven rounds, with the team with the worst regular season record picking first and the Super Bowl winner picking last. While this method initially appears favorable, with prevailing wisdom suggesting that higher picks should be valued more than lower picks, these findings weaken that argument, said Dennis Shaffer, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University .
“In a draft, it’s not like everybody agrees that player X is always number one, so you’re going to have teams coming at it from different perspectives and based on their own positional needs,” said Shaffer. “That kind of thing will always play a role in their choices.”
Shaffer’s research often investigates how intuitive beliefs govern our behavior. In this case, the work shows how subjective, and imperfect, NFL draft value predictions can be in the long term.
The study was recently published in The Sport Journal.
Although previous studies have ventured down several avenues to determine what other characteristics may affect NFL draft value, none has been definitive – though some have emphasized that draft value matters little to the probability of a team making the playoffs.
In this work, researchers used the Pro Football Reference site to gather data for every player drafted from 2011 to 2020. They then used the Pro Football Focus (PFF) site to gather overall season grades for each player across their first four years in the NFL, resulting in a sample of 2,544 drafted players across 10 years.
Importantly, the study’s results don’t imply that draft position is completely irrelevant when it comes to picking good players. Instead, it indicates that the connection between these factors is just weaker than people think, said Shaffer.
“For what the NFL is currently doing, performance doesn’t bear out according to draft values or rookie contracts,” said Shaffer. “It doesn’t matter how you look at it in terms of valuation, in trade values or rookie salaries, which are greater for higher picks.”
Yet there is one silver lining, at least for individual players. Despite initial wage differences attached to a player’s draft position, someone drafted at the bottom of the second round will likely last as long as someone chosen in the top of the second round – meaning wages over the lifetime of a player’s career could rise to be the same as or better than their peers’ earnings.
“At least right off the bat, while higher draft position equals a greater salary, draft position has little bearing on how much you earn over the course of your contract,” said Shaffer. “You could equal or exceed that of a higher-drafted peer because your performance is better over more time in the league.”
Still, to improve the process as a whole, the study concludes that subtly altering the NFL’s grading system may provide a better framework to achieve greater long-term success for teams as well as inform better strategies on which prospective football players to draft.
“Executives may want to start basing trade value charts on something other than previous trades made,” said Shaffer. “It’ll ensure their sports intuition better aligns with eventual outcomes.”
Ryanne E. Shaffer, an incoming undergraduate student at Ohio State, co-authored the study.
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Contact: Dennis Shaffer, Shaffer.247@osu.edu
Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu
The Sport Journal
Over-promised, under-delivered: Does position in the National Football League draft matter?
29-Apr-2026