The Cost to Move Up in the Draft This Year vs Next Year

Draft pick value is incredibly fluid. These charts honestly mean very little and its not even realistic to speculate off of. How many players have top 10 grade? How many players have first round grades? Second round grades? And so fourth. And that's not even getting into the team need vs talent available and what's ran the board. All of it drastically effects the value of the picks.

It's why every year, every team contacts every team to gauge compensation expectation for a particular draft pick, especially in the first round. Through those communications is where value and compensation ends up aligning and setting the market, and it changes quite a bit from draft to draft, in large part due to player grades.

If there is 4 franchise QB's in next year's draft close to or better than Ward this year, the cost will come down to "How many teams need a franchise QB?" If the need is low, the price drops. But wait! Theres more!? What if there's two generational pass rushers? Well, now the price increases.

Point being, to speculate right now cost to move up into next year's draft isn't just speculation. It's complete and utter guess work. These charts really hold no value to the people who make the calls on value vs compensation.

But I'll bite. Let's say the Saints finish with the 18th pick, and we want to move up to #4. Well, 3 first rounders are highly unlikely to get it done. But it's impossible to say how many 2nd or 3rd rounder's it will also require. What if their are only 20 players with a first round grade, and 20 players with a second round grade? That means our second round pick is now valued as a 3rd. See the dilemma?
I don't totally disagree, however teams do use the chart as a starting point when trading picks. And trading picks to reach #1-2 in the draft is extremely expensive.

Also if there are other players pushing QB's further down in the draft as you mentioned, the price of compensation now favors the team in need. Trading Pick #3 is always gonna fetch better compensation than say Pick #6 when a team is moving up from the mid teens.

I mentioned this when I posted the thread>>>

Disclaimer: I realize not every trade is exactly predicated on trade chart value, but it's normally very close in compensation.

And I'll agree with you that if your name is Mike Ditka, the trade chart means absolute zero to you.