Draft Day - the movie - did Costner have a good day?

The Game Room
1

I don’t want to discuss the quality of the film. Each person will have their own opinion on that. Also, I am planning on opening up a new thread in CS when I get a chance to discuss it.

For those of you that have not seen it, Draft Day was a movie based on the NFL draft, and Kevin Costner plays the GM of the Cleveland Browns.

He owns the 7th overall pick in the first round. There is a LB he loves, but there is a franchise QB available, and apparently he is the only QB considered a franchise QB in the draft this year.

He trades the number 7 pick, plus his first round picks for the next three years for the number 1 overall pick in this year’s draft.

He THEN drafts a LB that he could have picked with the 7th pick, and as the franchise QB tumbles, he trades his next 3 season’s number 2 picks for the 6th pick in the first round of this years draft.

He then trades the 6th overall pick to the same team who he traded the number 1 overall pick with (Seattle in the movie, not relevant to this discussion) for the number 7 pick, all 3 number 1’s he traded away originally PLUS a veteran KR.

After all the dust settled, here is what I have come up with for what the Browns did on Draft Day.

They ended up with the first over-all pick in the first round and the 7th overall pick in the first round and a veteran KR.

With the 1st pick (1-1), they took a LB they could have picked at 1-7.

With the 7th pick (1-7), they took a RB they wanted, but could have drafted later in the draft (when, I do not know… However the movie gave the impression that the RB was a mid-to late 1st round pick. The movie also indicated the LB they took at number 1 could tumble into the teens or even further if he wasn’t selected at 7 by the Browns - this was before the trades were made).

They gave up the next three seasons number 2 draft picks… Valuable picks to be sure, but not if you got what you wanted with the trades.

I think I covered everything.

**When you pull everything apart, it boils down to this…

The Browns traded 3 future 2nd round picks for the current year’s number 1 over all AND a decent KR.**

On paper, that seems like a very good deal, especially when you consider with the overall number 1, you can get a franchise QB, something easily worth 3 future number 2’s (assuming you hit a home run with the pick).

As a GM, I would make the trade of 3 future number 2 picks for this year’s overall 1, plus a KR. However, I would have NOT made the trades Costner made along the way, especially the first trade (4 number 1 picks for the 1st overall pick).

Would you, as a GM, make the trades Costner made?

(If I have mis-remembered anything, feel free to correct the information).

2

They traded 3 #1s and change to move from 7 to 6? Unless you have irrefutable knowledge the world will end in the next 12 months that is a moronic deal.

3

They traded 3 #1’s to move from 7 to 1, which I hate (see RGIII and Atlanta’s woes). Luckily for them, they’re playing in a league with fucking idiots who are willing to give up 2 future #1’s to move up one spot in the draft. From the OP’s description ( I haven’t and likely won’t see the movie), it sounds like Costner made up for a stupid trade by finding someone even stupider than him.

4

Oh, he did. Costner’s character comments on how the Jacksonville GM is brand new at the job and easy to push around.

5

Hamlet has it right. The original deal was to move from number 7 in the first round to number 1 in the first round. THAT deal was essentially 4 number 1’s for the first pick. (This year’s number 1’s swapped, and 3 more #1’s in the next 3 years.)

I am going to cover this more in the CS thread. But the trades, standing on their own, are hard to swallow… The only way this comes out OK for Costner is he found someone else that was dumber than him to fix his mistake (IMO, his first trade was awful).

But even if you toss out the Hollywood nonsense, there are some interesting things to consider.

Since Costner owns the #1 pick, and in this draft there is almost unanimous consensus that the franchise QB is the real deal, that pick has tremendous value. When he picks a LB that he could have had at his original pick at 7, (and in the movie, the only other team thinking of taking this LB was at 15, and the player was told that he could slip beyond 15 and to prepare for a “long night”), Costner not only reaches for a player, he has to pay that player a salary that goes to the #1 pick overall. That is a BIG difference, especially when you are discussing a player who may slip to the mid-first round or beyond.

As Redskins fans learned when their owner, Dan Snyder, made the horrific deal to secure RG3, unthinkable deals actually do happen, and especially on draft day, owners, GM’s and coaches DO panic, overpay, and/or make bad deals.

However, Costner’s dealings in this movie should have cost him his job. The only thing that saved him (and the deal) was the second and third trades he made. Thank heaven for the script writers, pulling his butt out of the fire.

In the end, it worked out (at least to me) as far as value goes, since he got the second first round draft pick in this year’s draft. But he cost his team a TON of money to get the player he wanted in the first place.