Secret of trading down in the draft

[phintim]

Just want to get some feedback from everyone on why Jimmy Johnson appeared to able to trade back in the football draft successfully and other GM's both with the Dolphins and other teams seem to struggle doing that in the draft?

 

[Geforce]

Randy Mueller gave an indication of why it's so difficult to do these day in a predraft interview.

I'll have to look for the exact article but basically he said it is because of the "Draft Value Chart" that Jimmy Johnson created. Too many GMs follow it closely in dealing with trades instead of following their gut instincts. Which is something Mueller likes to do.

 

[dolpns13]

Just want to get some feedback from everyone on why Jimmy Johnson appeared to able to trade back in the football draft successfully and other GM's both with the Dolphins and other teams seem to struggle doing that in the draft?

JJ knew how to draft and was great at finding talent. Look at the teams he built in Dallas and the defense he gave us through the draft which we are still reaping the benefits from. Wanny and Speilman did not have anywhere near the talent themselves, to evaluate talent, through the draft. Wanny ended up destroying the NFL teams he was head coach of starting with Chicago and ending with us. When he got to them they were good, playoff contending teams..When he left them..You know..We will see how good Saban was at it within the next 2 years, but I think Mueller is off to the right start and Historically he knows what he is doing.

 

[NathanHunt]

Just want to get some feedback from everyone on why Jimmy Johnson appeared to able to trade back in the football draft successfully and other GM's both with the Dolphins and other teams seem to struggle doing that in the draft?

Trading down requires 2 things:

1) A partner
2) The ability to get the same caliber talent later that you are trading away (either in quantity or overall quality)


A good example of this is the "Julius Jones (Cowboys) for Steven Jackson (Rams)" trade a few years back. Parcells felt he could obtain the same caliber player (for his needs in his system) later in Julius Jones instead of picking Steven Jackson.

Obviously, Steven Jackson proved to be the better back. But, given Parcell's eventual man-love for Marion Barber III, one could argue that Jackson could not have faired much better in Parcell's 2 back system than Jones. However, it could also be mentioned that Jones' injury later in his rookie season stopped his breakout AND led to Barber's emergence in one fatal blow. So, it could be a chicken and egg debate.

In most situations, I've seen that teams making a "playoff push" or "Super Bowl" run tend to trade up in belief of needing 1 or 2 guys. And rebuilding teams needing quantity tend to desire to trade back. Thus making good trading partners.

But, sometimes, the "talent" is deep enough that those upper echelon teams prefer to sit at their pick and pass on trading.

There's a lot of theories. One is just as good as another I guess.

 

[Superself]

For someone with such a big reputation for drafting well, Jimmy sure did lay some king sized turds that didn't pan out too.

 

[FinFaninMS]

The way everyone is heaping laurels on Jimmy Johnson for being such a masterful drafter one would think he could do no wrong.

So why wasn't he able to do a thing to improve the offense in the time he was here and why for every one of his finds in the later rounds did he have a a tremendous bust in the early rounds (JJ Johnson, John Avery) and a few in the later rounds as well (Cecil Collins, Larry Shannon)?

 

[pdot hot]

man

 

[dolpns13]

The way everyone is heaping laurels on Jimmy Johnson for being such a masterful drafter one would think he could do no wrong.

So why wasn't he able to do a thing to improve the offense in the time he was here and why for every one of his finds in the later rounds did he have a a tremendous bust in the early rounds (JJ Johnson, John Avery) and a few in the later rounds as well (Cecil Collins, Larry Shannon)?

Guess you can say he was far better at drafting defense than offense seeing most of his offensive picks didnt do that well and most of his defensive picks did very well

 

[NathanHunt]

Guess you can say he was far better at drafting defense than offense seeing most of his offensive picks didnt do that well and most of his defensive picks did very well

In SOME defense to Jimmy, he could NEVER address the offense until Dan was gone. Dan was a system. And the Dan System wasn't the Jimmy System.

Dan defined Jimmy's career. Unfortunately, it was a huge battle of egos with no apparent winner.

 

[dolpns13]

In SOME defense to Jimmy, he could NEVER address the offense until Dan was gone. Dan was a system. And the Dan System wasn't the Jimmy System.

Dan defined Jimmy's career. Unfortunately, it was a huge battle of egos with no apparent winner.

Your right about that. but I wouldnt say Marino was Marino because of the system he played in. You have to have loads o talent to be the same type of passer Marino was. But, Jimmy was a running guy hence the system. No HOF pure passing QB would have numbers like Marino, or Manning, or Favre if they were on a Jimmy Johnson team

 

[whatsburning]

In SOME defense to Jimmy, he could NEVER address the offense until Dan was gone. Dan was a system. And the Dan System wasn't the Jimmy System.

Dan defined Jimmy's career. Unfortunately, it was a huge battle of egos with no apparent winner.

But wasn't that the same problem Don Shula had when Danny first got here? Shula played the cards he was dealth...

 

[1stDown]

Randy Mueller gave an indication of why it's so difficult to do these day in a predraft interview.

I'll have to look for the exact article but basically he said it is because of the "Draft Value Chart" that Jimmy Johnson created. Too many GMs follow it closely in dealing with trades instead of following their gut instincts. Which is something Mueller likes to do.

I read a quote saying most GM's don't care about the chart. If they feel good about a trade, they will make it. Its just teams ask too much for it.

For example, when the Broncos traded from 21 to 17th pick, Del Rio was being offered only a 3rd for moving up 5 spots. He wanted more, and Shanny refused to give up anything more. He end up calling with 2 minutes left on the clock saying he will do the deal.

Also in Round 4, Shanny offered picks equaling 146 points from the draft chart to the Vikings for their 4th rounder worth 46 points. It was completley lopsided acording to the charts. But if your gut tells you a player is available to make an impact, you pull the deal no mater what the charts say.

 

[phintim]

Johnson drafted heavy on the defense and the running game those 2 years he was with us because we could score alot but not defend very well. Also he felt a running game rested the defense. Looks like we could be headed in the oposite direction now a bit. But my question was more in regards to the quanity he drafted not the quality. His 2nd and 3rd round picks were better than his first. Darrel Gardner was the exception and I believe he gave up a 1st rounder for a 2nd rounder in one draft to pick up Patrick Surtain.

 

[DOC33]

Your right about that. but I wouldnt say Marino was Marino because of the system he played in. You have to have loads o talent to be the same type of passer Marino was. But, Jimmy was a running guy hence the system. No HOF pure passing QB would have numbers like Marino, or Manning, or Favre if they were on a Jimmy Johnson team

Marino was not really the problem. Certainly he was not JJ's exact type of QB but Jimmy could have won with him. Jimmy's problem was that he could not get any *** Coaches to join him here. We had Kippy freaking Brown as the OC. I not certain but I would guess that Jimmy's ego got the best of him in MIA and so he could not attract acceptable coaches to join him here. He was never a great X's and O's coach IMO. He could motivate and evaluate talent and with the assistant coaches that he had in Dallas he would have won here as well.

 

[NathanHunt]

But wasn't that the same problem Don Shula had when Danny first got here? Shula played the cards he was dealth...

I think you've got your history confused. Shula was here LONG before Marino. Not to mention the little tidbit of Shula DRAFTING Marino.

Shula DEALT his own cards.

Jimmy was dealt the Marino card.

Shula proved long before Dan Marino came along that he could win by passing the ball. Even though Jim Kick, Mercury Morris and Larry Czonka gave the Dolphins their reputation... it was Paul Warfield that catapulted the offense to new heights. He gave them the dimension they needed to clear the Super Bowl hurdle.

Shula proved then he could manipulate the running game AND passing game. He was not a 1 dimensional offensive mind. He used the players he had... and well.

Jimmy had a system and it was scripted; versatile and smash mouth mamoth OLine, game manager QB, fast deep threat WR1, power running game with a multi-dimensional RB and versatile pass catching lead FB, possession TE with some ability to stretch the defense and, when clicking on all cylinders, a possession WR2.

Moose, Emmitt, Aikman, Harper, Irvin and Novacheck were the quintessential Jimmy Johnson players at their respective positions. And it was a system, Jimmy carried it with him every where he went.

What separates Don and Jimmy is Don could adapt to different systems based on his players; Jimmy could not.