The shocking trade by New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen, which sent Kadarius Toney to the Kansas City Chiefs for two draft picks, has had the football world in a frenzy since it was announced. In exchange for Toney, the Giants received an equalizer third-round pick, which the Chiefs received as a result of hiring Ryan Poles as GM of the Chicago Bears as well as the Chiefs’ sixth-round pick in the 2023 NFL draft.
There was a wide variety of opinions about the trade among Giants fans. Some argue that since Toney was a first-round pick (No. 20), anything other than a first in return means the Giants didn’t receive the same value commercially. If Toney had been as successful as some of the other first-round picks of 2021…say, Micah Parsons or Rashawn Slater (to add salt to the wound for those who didn’t like Dave Gettleman’s trade-down that led to the Toney pick) , this argument might have merit.
Ranking by approximate value
But Toney was a written-off asset — a player who couldn’t stay on the field, appeared in only 12 of 24 games and had just two notable performances in back-to-back games against New Orleans and Dallas in 2021. What value should we assign? to? For each NFL player, Pro Football Reference calculates an approximate score (weighted from more to less successful years to emphasize the former), which is effectively a combined rating of how much the player played and how good they were when they played. Her current weighted AV for Toney is 3. That ranks 66th with 18 other players in the 2021 draftee list. Here are the other players whose performance to date has been of comparable value to Toney according to the PFR:
Data courtesy of Pro Football Reference
You might see a few names on this list that you would have liked to have traded directly for Toney. But if so, then they’re either players that few expect to have much success (e.g. RB Khalil Herbert) or you’re probably judging mostly by your pre-draft view of them. The AV for these players tells us that despite the pedigree of some of them (the list includes four other first-round players), their past performance in the NFL has been disappointing or inconsistent, or both.
If the NFL were to redraw 2021 and rank right after AV, Toney would equate to a pick in the upper-mid portion of Round 3 (.100 since compensating picks are added at the end of each round) plus a Round 6 pick seems a reasonable catch too be.
A general feeling seen on Twitter over the past 24 hours is that the Round 3 pick is a comp pick and thus at the end of Round 3 it’s only a Round 4 pick acts. This is of course objectively wrong. But here is another perspective. The New York Football Giants are second in the NFL today with a 6-1 record. If you think they’ll end up anywhere near that high rank by the end of the season, then they’ll be drafting somewhere near the 90-96 picks in Round 3 next year. If so, then the comp pick received for Toney could be within 10 picks of her own third-round pick.
Trade Value Charts
Another way to approach the question is to ask what the draft picks Schoen acquired are equivalent to. There are numerous trade value charts for this purpose. The most widely cited is the Jimmy Johnson chart, which assigns an excessive value to top draft picks and almost no value to late draft picks. There was no science behind this chart – it merely reflected what Johnson believed to be correct and what was the prevailing view of NFL connoisseurs at the time.
We now know that most people grossly overvalue high draft picks and undervalue low draft picks. A more objective approach to trade value was developed by Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald and Pro Football Focus’ Brad Spielberger. Their approach was to let the NFL’s own spending patterns determine value: the salary each draftee was paid at the end of their rookie contract was their measure of how well the NFL itself rated each draftee after they had the chance to play in the NFL. The resulting Fitzgerald-Spielberger chart is much flatter than the Jimmy-Johnson chart:
Data courtesy of Over The Cap
If we use this chart to evaluate trading, we get the following. To illustrate, let’s assume the comp pick is #100 and the Chiefs pick for Round 6 is #224. The combined value of these picks is 666 + 258 = 924 points. According to the table, this roughly equates to pick #60 late in Round 2. Force a late second-round pick over a first-round pick that’s played half of his team’s games? Not bad.
Concrete examples
Another way to view the tips Schoen received is to ask what types of players were drafted during those stages. The always informative NYGfaninCLT has provided information on players drafted in the third round and early fourth round comp pick range in recent years:
It all comes down to Giants fans trusting Schoen to find value late in the second day of the draft. Schoen drafted Daniel Bellinger at number 112 this year, and he’s arguably the best of all the TEs drafted in 2022, despite being the sixth selected. Dane Belton, drafted at No. 114, is part of the regular rotation of backups used by Wink Martindale.
Other gems found late in Round 3 and early in Round 4 in recent years include Houston running back Dameon Pierce (505 yards, 3 TDs, 81.7 PFF rating), Denver center Quinn Meinerz, rated 80 .0 by PFF in a part-time role this year, edgesback Baron Browning (3 sacks and a 70.7 PFF score this year) and Detroit wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown (90 receptions, 912 yards, 5 TDs last season).
Looking ahead to Round 6, it’s worth remembering that since the 2022 draft, Giants resident Darrian Beavers was on track to make significant snaps at linebacker this season before his injury. Offensive lineman Jamaree Salyer claimed the left starting position for the Chargers after injuring Rashawn Slater at the end of the season. In Round 6 of the 2021 draft, running backs were Elijah Mitchell, who claimed the starting job for the 49ers against third-round Trey Sermon, and Khalil Herbert, who is rotating as the starting RB for Chicago. No Giants fan will forget Guard Trey Smith, who has been a starter for the Chiefs since joining the league. And the Giants fan favorite, edge defender Quincy Roche, was picked by Pittsburgh in the sixth round.
Perhaps Toney will play once Kansas City returns from his departure a week before Sunday, staying healthy and becoming the otherworldly menace we all saw had the potential to be. Or maybe he’ll continue to injure himself and exhaust his reception in Kansas City as quickly as he did on Giants Drive in 1925. It’s yet to be seen, just as there’s no way to gauge whether the picks Joe Schoen acquired for him will be one or will produce two great Giants of the future. But the cloudy crystal ball we have right now says it was a fair trade.