The Art of Charting in the NFL
 

A quarter of a century after Jimmy Johnson went to work building the Dallas Cowboys dynasty through a series of trades that brought forth a bounty of talent in the draft, NFL teams are still aware of the draft chart the Cowboys used to assess what constitutes a fair trade. But while the chart is still used for quick back-of-the-envelope calculations when teams are on the clock and trying to pull off fast trades, the value of the chart itself shouldn’t be overstated.

Some teams have moved on to more sophisticated charts that they believe better approximate the true value of draft picks. Newer charts take into consideration things like the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which makes high first-round picks much more affordable than they were under the old CBA. (When Johnson first put the chart together, the NFL didn’t even have a salary cap, which meant the Cowboys were free to consider football skill alone without also worrying about whether they could squeeze in the salaries of all their picks.)

“It’s the standard,” 49ers General Manager Trent Baalke said of Johnson’s old Cowboys trade chart. “Everybody uses it, so you have to understand it and take a look at it.”

The 49ers, however, have developed their own chart, which hasn’t been made public like the old Jimmy Johnson chart has. There have been some indications that the 49ers’ chart looks more like the chart published in 2011 by the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, but the reality is that charts don’t dictate trades. For proof of that, just look at the trade last year between the 49ers and the Cowboys, whose owner and General Manager Jerry Jones was standing side by side with Johnson in the Dallas draft room back in the 1990s. If teams closely followed their own draft charts, you’d expect Jones to make a trade only when it looked beneficial according to the old draft chart, and you’d expect Baalke to make a trade only when it looked beneficial according to the Harvard draft chart.

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Re: The Art of Charting in the NFL
 

I feel more stupid for reading that.

Re: The Art of Charting in the NFL
 

I have a chart too.
No complicated numbers or anything. Can I get the player I want plus additional picks to get more players I want?.
Yes, deal done