Who made the best and worst trades in the 2017 NFL Draft?

You have to get deep into hard data and valuations to get there, but there’s a way to see the Bears’ trade for Mitchell Trubisky as a win.

You know, as long as you ignore the fact Chicago could have stayed put, kept its draft picks, and just taken the UNC passer at No. 3 anyway.

A look at this year’s NFL draft day trades broken down by pick value suggests the Bears may have actually gotten a good return for their oft-panned deal with the 49ers. A look at the league’s draft pick value chart suggests Chicago actually got surplus value equal to a fourth-round selection by moving up one spot to take Trubisky.

Teams have found an easy way to match pick trades since at least the 1990s, when Jimmy Johnson’s guide assigned number values to each and every pick in the draft. That balance has shifted recently, as the salary cap and contract ramifications for rookie picks have become nearly as important as the tools they bring to the field.

Each team has their own separate chart to determine which combination of picks makes a trade worthwhile. While those tables are private, Rich Hill over at Pats Pulpit broke down prior trade data to come up with his own estimate of current pick valuations. Here’s how his calculations look:

With those numbers in place, we can take an analytical look at all the deals that shook up the first two days of the 2017 NFL Draft. In terms of quarterbacks, the Bears may have underpaid for Trubisky, which may explain why Chicago’s front office was willing to trade up to ensure it would land the UNC passer. Trubisky’s early selection set off a rush on passers, which in turn allowed the Browns to get the best trade deal of the draft 10 picks later.

While the Chiefs overpaid to get Patrick Mahomes at No. 10, their cost wasn’t as much as Texans gave up to select Deshaun Watson two picks later. Houston gave up the equivalent of a mid-second rounder to select the Clemson passer. Typically, Cleveland would have to take on the league’s second-worst starting quarterback and his $16 million/year contract to get that kind of deal.

Here are all the deals from days one and two, ranked from most lopsided to least.

Other takeaways? The Patriots’ day two deals were a net loss — a rare negative for a franchise with a history of winning big in draft trades. The 49ers may have gotten another big trade win by getting the Saints’ 2018 second-rounder in exchange for their No. 67 pick. The Bears and Rams traded away back-to-back picks in the mid-30s for nearly identical positive returns.

Of course, the analytical end doesn’t factor in whether the player a team was targeting would have dropped, or if said player plays a position of scarcity. Sometimes it’s worth taking a statistical loss to wind up in a spot where a needy team can take the last top-tier linebacker or receiver. Other times, it’s easier to justify moving down when a draft is filled with high-level prospects at a certain position — like how secondary-needy teams could wait until Day 2 to pick up first-round talent at defensive back.

The draft chart is an imperfect tool, but it helps rationalize and simplify trades during a high-pressure, time-limited event. What it doesn’t do, however, is ensure a player picked will live up to the value at which the table pegs him. If you’re a team like the Bears, you’ve got to hope a quarterback like Trubisky far exceeds the 691 points they gave up for him.