The Indianapolis Colts have grown a reputation under general manager Chris Ballard as being one of the teams most welcoming trade backs in the NFL draft.
At some point in the draft, Ballard is going to trade down. He’s done it in every draft up to this point and in most cases, he does it more than once. In his four drafts with the Colts, Ballard has traded down eight times. Stephen Holder of The Athletic did a great write-up on what kind of value Ballard has been getting in those trades.
Without a third-round pick this year, which he gave up in the trade for quarterback Carson Wentz, Ballard has just six picks at his disposal. That’s the fewest amount he’s had since becoming the general manager of the Colts.
A trade back at some point in 2021 should be expected, and they are likely to get the most value from moving the No. 21 overall pick. So we decided to take a look at the history of trading back from that pick to see what kind of haul Indy can get and to also compare it to the value of what those picks became.
Using Stathead’s Trade Finder Tool, we are looking all trade backs since 2000 from the No. 21 overall pick. Here are some quick hits from the data before we dive in:
- Six times a team has traded back from No. 21 overall. Five of those six trades included solely giving up the No. 21 pick.
- According to the Rich Hill model of valuing draft picks, the No. 21 overall pick has a value of 261.
- In the five trades that included solely the No. 21 overall pick, the average value of the picks a team gets in return is 282.
- However, in four of those five trades, the team trading away the No. 21 pick lost total value in the deal, according to the value chart.
- Using Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value metric (AV), the combined career AV of the players that were selected at No. 21 overall by the team trading up is 161 (five total players).
- Conversely, the combined career AV of the players the team trading back eventually selected is 185 (12 total players).
Before breaking down those trades, we also took a look at teams the Colts could trade back with and what those deals might look like.
