2017 NFL Draft: Cleveland Browns lap the field in draft capital, Rams rank last

All that wheeling and dealing has the Browns in position to make a huge draft day splash

The NFL Scouting Combine begins on Wednesday and over the next five days hundreds of potential draftees will attempt to wow teams during a series of drills and interviews. They’ll run, jump, punt, pass, kick, get measured, and hit the microphone, all in hopes that one of 32 teams will be impressed enough to write their name on a card in late April. 

Of course, not all 32 teams will have the same number of chances to draft these players. Sure, each team ostensibly gets allotted seven selections (one in each round), but thanks to trades, violations of league rules, and compensatory picks, teams have moved up, down, and out of the draft board in different rounds. 

And not all picks have the same inherent value, either. We know the No. 1 pick is more valuable than the No. 32 pick, for example, but we don’t necessarily know how much more value the Browns (picking first) have with their entire allotment of picks than do the Patriots (picking 32nd). Thanks to the trade value chart created by former Cowboys and Dolphins head coach Jimmy Johnson, which is still in use by many teams today, as well as a more new-school chart created by Chase Stuart at Football Perspective (which looks more like the private versions some other teams use) we can approximate that difference. 

Below, we’ve compiled the point value for each team on the Johnson chart as well as the Stuart chart, and ranked them from 1 to 32 by who has the most capital to spend on draft day. 

Rank	Team	Picks	Johnson	Stuart
1	Cleveland Browns	11	5627.1	98.6
2	San Francisco 49ers	10	3619.4	63.5
3	Chicago Bears	7	3161.8	59.1
4	Tennessee Titans	7	2952.8	58.35
5	Jacksonville Jaguars	7	2724.3	54.4
6	Carolina Panthers	7	2346.4	53.45
7	New York Jets	7	2477.3	50.8
8	Cincinnati Bengals	11	2232.8	52.16
9	Los Angeles Chargers	7	2370.0	49.55
10	Philadelphia Eagles	7	1924.8	46.65
11	Washington Redskins	10	1709.4	47.35
12	Arizona Cardinals	8	1919.0	44.75
13	Buffalo Bills	6	2039.2	42.9
14	Baltimore Ravens	7	1801.0	46.5
15	Indianapolis Colts	7	1854.7	44.7
16	New Orleans Saints	6	2011.2	42.35
17	Denver Broncos	10	1591.0	43.07
18	Detroit Lions	8	1418.0	41.45
19	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	7	1526.6	38.45
20	Seattle Seahawks	8	1342.1	39.2
21	Kansas City Chiefs	10	1301.9	41.35
22	Miami Dolphins	7	1322.4	35.75
23	New York Giants	7	1322.9	35.65
24	Pittsburgh Steelers	8	1177.6	37.65
25	Houston Texans	7	1275.2	35.85
26	Oakland Raiders	7	1303.6	35.75
27	New England Patriots	9	1144.6	38.15
28	Green Bay Packers	8	1145.1	34.55
29	Atlanta Falcons	7	1054.9	31.95
30	Dallas Cowboys	7	1138.3	31.8
31	Minnesota Vikings	8	927.2	33.75
32	Los Angeles Rams	8	928.8	31.05

Some notes:

• The Browns, obviously, by virtue of having both the No. 1 overall pick and an NFL-high 11 selections in the draft, lead the way in available draft capital. Nobody else really comes close. 
• The Rams finish last in available capital thanks to last year’s trade up to No. 1 overall to select Jared Goff. 
• The Eagles traded for last year’s No. 2 overall pick, where they selected Carson Wentz, and gave up their own first-round pick in this year’s draft to do so, but they recouped a first-round selection from Minnesota in the Sam Bradford trade, allowing them to sneak into the top 10 here. The Vikings, meanwhile, are down in 31st.
• The Super Bowl champion Patriots, thanks to several compensatory picks and the Jamie Collins trade, bump up from 32nd to 27th despite losing a fourth-round pick as part of their Deflategate punishment. 
• Washington is set to pick 17th in the first round but ranks 11th in draft capital due to trades netting them picks from the Browns, Saints, and Texans in the middle rounds. 
• By contrast, the Saints are picking 11th but only have the 16th-most capital because they’re only scheduled to make six picks as of this writing. 
• A few big differences in where teams rank on the Johnson chart and the Stuart chart: Washington moves from 16th (Johnson) to 10th (Stuart), while Buffalo drops from 10th to 16th, Kansas City moves up from 24th to 19th, New Orleansa drops from 11th to 17th, New England rises from 28th to 22nd, and the Giants drop from 21st to 27th. These moves are likely due to Stuart’s chart being weighted by the average Approximate Value (Pro-Football-Reference’s all-encompassing statistic) accumulated by a player during their rookie deal only, while the Johnson chart is weighted simply by how much a choice is ostensibly worth compared to others on draft day itself. 
• Only 17 of the 32 teams will make exactly seven picks, and several of those teams will only due so due to recouping traded picks in other deals or with compensatory selections. Only the Falcons, Jaguars, Chargers, Raiders, and Buccaneers appear to be scheduled to make only their seven allotted picks.