National Football League

2023 NFL Draft: Which teams hold the most capital — and what can they do with it?

Updated Apr. 24, 2023 7:56 p.m. ET

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Warren Sharp

FOX Sports NFL Writer

The NFL Draft is an exercise in the pursuit of parity, rewarding the NFL's worst teams more than its best. It exists to maintain some semblance of competitive balance.

While the prior year's finish dictates current-year selections, a number of elements cause the distribution to be imbalanced on an annual basis.  For instance, prior year trades (and current year trades) will cause some teams to be better off.  Additionally, the overlooked (by most fans) world of compensatory selections allows some good teams to have even more value than one would expect based on their prior year's finish.

Who owns the 2023 NFL Draft as of right now?

The first few teams may be surprising. That's because the Panthers, Cardinals and Colts, picking No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 in the draft, don't have top-five draft capital overall this year.  The Texans are tops in value, followed by the Seahawks (picking No. 5 overall), the Lions (picking No. 6 overall) the Raiders (picking No. 7 overall) and the Bears (picking No. 9 overall). 

In last year's draft, three teams ranked top-10 in draft capital entering the draft despite making the playoffs (the Chiefs, Eagles and Packers). Two of them met in the Super Bowl. This year, the Seahawks are the only team to have made the playoffs the prior year who possess top-10 value in the NFL draft the following year.

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But how do we define draft capital in terms of the total value of picks?

Certainly, the total number of picks isn't a sound basis because selections decline in value as the draft progresses. We'll rely on two very smart public models to create our own assessment.

The first is based on average performance delivered in a player's first 5 years based on draft slot (the AV model created by Chase Stuart). The second is average dollars earned in non-rookie deals based upon draft slot (the OTC model created by Brad Spielberger & Jason Fitzgerald). 

Several years ago, I focused just on the performance aspect when assessing draft capital. But then the guys at Over The Cap created the contractual valuation. And it seemed wise to incorporate the two together.

Performance.  Dollars. Together into one metric, simply the Sharp Football Analysis Draft Value metric. But we'll refer to it as simply "draft value" from here on out.

Clocking in with the most draft capital they've had in franchise history are the Houston Texans. Yes, by winning their final game of the season, they cost themselves the No. 1 overall pick. But they still have more capital than the Bears, who added to their flexibility in future drafts by trading with the Panthers (an extra first-round pick in 2024 and an extra second-round pick in 2025, as well as an extra second-round this year).

But having draft capital doesn't mean much unless you make it count. Just last year, the Texans had the second-most capital in the NFL draft.  And despite that, they still had the second-worst record in the NFL last year. The Texans clearly need to get a lot out of this draft, and there is strong debate whether they will draft a quarterback second overall.

All this illustrates the complications of Houston winning its final game of the season.

[Related: NFL Draft alternate universe: How 6 teams' fortunes change if not for Texans' comeback]

A Texans loss in Week 18 last year would have guaranteed the Texans an opportunity to draft the best quarterback in the draft and their franchise quarterback of the future. But because Smith played to win the final game of the season, the Texans might pass on drafting a quarterback in a class far superior to 2022. And their future at the position remains unsettled. 

The team with the second-most draft capital this year is the Seattle Seahawks. 

Seattle has more draft capital in 2023 than in any year since I started studying draft value, 1999. Typically a solid team, at least since drafting Russell Wilson, Seattle often picked near the bottom of the draft and had bottom-10 draft value. But they finally have a massive haul to work with in 2023 and need to make it pay off for them. 

Rounding out the top three in draft value are the Detroit Lions.

The only year in which they had more draft capital than they do this year was way back in 2009, when they drafted Matthew Stafford No. 1 overall. In three out of the last four years, the Lions have now had top-six draft capital at their disposal. If they take advantage of it, they just might be able to return to the playoffs and potentially break the longest playoff win drought in the NFL:

To conclude, it's interesting to take a historical look at draft capital used over the last decade to see how teams build. 

Keep in mind, the better the team, the less capital a team "should" have, but that's not always the case (see the Patriots over the last decade, for example). 

Just because a team owns and uses high-value picks in the draft does not mean they are guaranteed to succeed.

Not all the GMs around the NFL are actually good at their jobs. Couple that with the fact that evaluating college players and forecasting their transition to the NFL is difficult. The hit rate on prospects is far worse later in the draft. Let's look at the most draft capital spent on players in the first two rounds over the last five years:

It makes sense the Rams, Chiefs and Saints rank low in value because they rank No. 1, 2 and 6 in wins since 2018.

But it's interesting to find a team like the Texans so far down on this list.  Another team from Texas, the Cowboys, have not seen their regular-season success (which drives draft position) pay off in the postseason.  This cycle of playoff failure limits their ability to land top value in the draft.

It also makes sense that the Jaguars, Giants, Jets and Lions have top-four draft capital in the first two rounds as those teams also rank bottom-four in total wins the last five years.  But they, as of yet, have not been able to take those highly drafted players and actually win anything.  Note how far they are above the bunch of teams ranked No. 6 thru No. 17 in early round draft capital used, yet these four teams have not yet turned the corner to make the capital used transfer into playoff success.

The good news for the Jaguars, Giants and Lions is it feels like they are getting much closer, and we know their teams are young and highly drafted. The Jets, on the other hand, appear to be hopeless unless they finalize terms for Aaron Rodgers to come in as a mercenary quarterback to turn the direction of the franchise around.

A lot will change during the course of the draft.  Teams will trade up and down the board, which will result in the final 2023 draft capital used being different than the current draft capital. 

But it's fascinating to study where teams sit just days away from the draft. And it's interesting to see which teams should own the draft — and how they spend their capital.

Warren Sharp is an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. He is the founder of Sharp Football Analysis and has worked as a consultant for league franchises while also previously contributing to ESPN and The Ringer, among other outlets. He studied engineering and worked professionally in the engineering field before using his statistical acumen to create predictive football models. You can follow Warren on Twitter at @SharpFootball.

NFL Draft coverage from FOX Sports:

• Mock draft: Colts pick Will Levis; how high does Jalen Carter go? (April 24)
• Mock draft: Two trades up for QBs in top 3 shake things up (April 19)
• Mock draft: Shakeup at the top; how do free agents affect projections? (April 12)
• Mock draft: Colin Cowherd's top 10 picks (April 6)
• Mock draft: Football writers make all 31 first-round picks (April 5)
• Mock draft: C.J. Stroud still No. 1, shakeup among top 10 (March 23)
• Mock draft: Shakeup at the top; how do free agents affect choices? (March 14)
• Prospect rankings, board: 100 best available players
• Positional rankings: QB, RB, WR, CB, EDGE, DT, G/C, OT
• Joel Klatt's Top 50 NFL Draft prospects
• Chris 'The Bear' Fallica's best NFL Draft prop bets and picks

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Warren Sharp