For the sake of argument, let’s just assume that there is no 2020 NFL season, or that a 2020 NFL season is cut extremely short after just a couple of games. How would the NFL go about preparing a 2021 Draft Order?

I have seen 3 main ideas floated around:

• Just re-do last year’s draft order, which seems to me to be a bit unfair. It assumes that the teams that were bad in 2019 will also be bad in 2020.
• A completely random draft order.  This has the advantage of being ex ante fair — there is no advantage to being the Jets or the Raiders or the Cowboys — but would be extremely unfair ex post: the team that gets the 32nd pick would be at a severe disadvantage to the team that gets the 1st pick.
  • Let’s say you and 31 friends came upon a bag containing $32,000.  It would be very simple and fair to split it $1K for each of you.  Now, you certainly could  engage in a winner-takes-all coin flip battle until there is one person who gets the full $32,000.  And that would be ex ante fair, as all of you would have the same chance of getting it.  But it wouldn’t feel fair after the fact.
  • This feels particularly important for the NFL, when you have a blue chip quarterback prospect.
• Base the draft order on an average of each team’s record over the last 3 or 4 or 5 years.  This might feel fairer, but what does that have to say about how good these teams are now?  The Patriots would pick last under this scenario, and New England could turn into a below-average team in 2020.  The 49ers would have a top-8 pick.

What I would propose is a draft system that is ex post fair, or at least as fair as we can make it. In a world with no 2020 NFL or college football season, nobody can say with any confidence which teams will be the best in 2021. And you risk creating a lot of backlash among fans if a team lucks into the first overall pick. So the goal of a draft in this hypothetical should be to create an outcome that is relatively fair among all teams.

That sounds hard to do, but it is not impossible. Here is what I am thinking.

How 27 of the 32 teams would draft
Let’s ignore the top 5 picks in the Draft for now; five teams will get the first five picks, and we will deal with them later. Let’s look at the other 27 teams. What the NFL should do is give Team 1 the 6th pick in the first round, Team 2 the 7th pick, Team 3 the 8th pick, and so on, through the end of the first round…. and then go in reverse order for the second round, and keep that reverse order for the rest of the draft (which will be 8 rounds). So Team 1 would receive picks 6, 59 (the last pick in the second round), 86 (the last pick in the third round), 113, 140, 167, 194, and 221, while team 28 would have picks 32, 33, 60, 87, 114, 141, 168, and 195.

Now, is that fair? According to the traditional Jimmy Johnson chart, the teams with early picks would still do better, but not by much; and, in fact, teams at the end would tend to fare slightly better than teams in the middle.

And what about based on the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart? As you would suspect, the teams that pick at the end of round 1 that get early round 2 picks do very well, but so do the early pick teams. Once again, the middle-of-the-round teams are in the worst shape.

In this scenario, each team would enter a lottery to become Team 1, Team 2, Team 3, and so on… but the stakes would be relatively low (at least compared to other hypotheticals). In practice, this draft style puts each of the teams in roughly similar positions. Yes, Team 16 might have slightly worse draft capital than Team 1 or Team 28, but it’s not a huge difference. On my chart, the difference in draft value between the most fortunate team 27 (worth 50 points) and the least fortunate team 11 (46.7 points) is equivalent to a late 4th round pick. On the traditional chart, the difference in value between the most fortunate team 1 (2215.4 points) and the least fortunate team 16 (1709.4 points) is equivalent to the 40th pick in the Draft. And while we could reduce the draft capital of some of the early teams (say, removing the 4th round picks for the teams that get picks 6 through 10) for now, let’s just stipulate that this structure — teams pick 6 through 32 in round 1, and then reverse the rest of the way for 8 rounds — mostly works.

Not, what about the first 5 picks in the 2021 Draft?

Pick 5 — let’s call them Team E — is pretty easy to deal with. The 5th pick is worth 1700 points on the traditional chart, while the other 28 teams have received an average of about 1830 points of draft capital. So we just need to give Team E another 130 points of value over 8 picks. That can be accomplished by giving Team E the last pick at the end of rounds 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (which, of course, moves each team down by one pick, too). So Team E would wind up with picks 5, 142, 170, 198, and 226. That turns out to be worth 1,837 points on the traditional chart.

Personally, I would not be in favor of being Team E, but I am sure some team would. So as commissioner, I would allow each team that wants to be Team E to say so; if there is just one team, it becomes team E. If there are multiple teams, you hold a lottery with as many teams as want to be Team E. Either way, competitive balance is not harmed. And, if for some reason no team wants to be Team E, I would give them *two* picks at the end of round 4, and then once again ask all 32 teams who wants to be Team E, and repeat the same process.

Pick 4 — let’s call them Team D — can be dealt with in a similar fashion. They get the 4th pick, worth 1800 points. They wouldn’t have another pick in the first round rounds, and then I would give them the last pick (now after Team E) in round 5, skip round 6, and give them the last two picks in rounds 7 and 8. This gives Team D the following set of picks: 4, 143, 200, 229, and 230. Once again, I would have a lottery where each team that wants to be Team D could get that opportunity. If no team wants to be Team D, then I would give them a 6th round pick and ask the same question again. If no team still wants to be Team D, offer a second pick at the end of round 5, and so on.

Now, let’s get to the tough ones: picks 1 through 3. If there is no NFL season, it is safe to assume that there would be no NCAA season, either. In that case, the real gems of the 2021 Draft would be the top two quarterback prospects, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State’s Justin Fields. Because of that, the real gap is between picks 2 and 3; in 2021, pick 3 would be much closer to pick 4, so I would do a similar process to what is outlined above even if the math doesn’t quite work out the same. I would award Team C the 3rd pick in the Draft, no other picks in the first five rounds, and then the last pick at the end of round 6, and the last two picks in rounds 7 and 8. So Team C would receive picks 3, 172, 203, 204, 235, and 236. Once again, this would be up for a lottery. If no team wants to be Team C, then I would award them an extra 6th round pick; if no team still wants to be Team C, offer a pick at the end of round 5; if no team still wants to be Team C, offer a pick at the end of round 4. But I suspect someone will want to be Team C without any additional carrots.

Made it this far? Great! Here is how much 2021 Draft Capital each team would have under this scenario, ignoring Teams A and B who will own the first two picks.

Teams D and E look bad here compared to other early picks, but remember two things: (1) teams are opting in to having this position — they could choose to just enter the 27-team random lottery instead, and (2) Teams D and E actually wind up with slightly more draft value than the average of the other 28 teams (again, ignoring teams A and B). Team C looks great, but again, the value of pick 3 is much closer to pick 4 than the traditional chart implies, and every team has the option of being Team C — and I suspect only a handful would want to. Team C’s second pick is the 172nd overall pick, so I do not think this option is too attractive (as you will see momentarily).

Here is how things look under the Football Perspective Draft Value Chart:

Again we see a relatively even distribution for Teams 1 through 27, and then Teams C, D, and E are a little light on Draft Capital. Of course, teams are opting in to these picks, so that’s on them. If NFL teams want to overvalue picks, we should let them. The goal is to create a system that people can’t complain about after the fact, and if everyone has the same chance, that should minimize all complaints.

Now, what about Teams A and B, who would get Lawrence and Fields? Here is where it gets interesting.

There would be a lottery to become Team A. To enter the lottery, you have to give up every draft pick in the 2021, 2022, and 2023 NFL Drafts. The commissioner would allow all 32 teams to choose to enter the lottery to become Team A.

Three teams want to enter this lottery? Okay, then we hold a lottery for these three teams.

No takers? Then you have to give up all of your draft picks in 2021, 2022, and 2023 except your 6th and 7th round picks. If you have three teams that are now interested, you hold a lottery. If there are still no teams, you allow teams to keep their 5th, 6th, and 7th round picks. And so on, until at least one team chooses to be Team A.

You would then have the same process done for a team to choose to be Team B. At the end, you’ll have two teams that voluntarily choose to give up all of their other 2021 Draft picks plus significant draft capital in 2022 and 2023 for the right to get Lawrence and Fields. And that feels pretty fair! Everyone has a chance to do this, and it’s not clear that even winning this lottery is a good thing. And that’s the point.

So here is how it would go.

Step 1. The NFL lets all 32 teams enter a lottery to become Team A, but the winner has to forfeit all other picks over the next 3 drafts (or a lesser amount, if applicable based on a lack of interest).

Step 2. The NFL lets the other 31 teams enter a lottery to become Team B, but the winner has to forfeit all other picks over the next 3 drafts (or a lesser amount, if applicable based on a lack of interest).

Step 3. The NFL lets the remaining 30 teams enter a lottery to become Team C, where they receive the 3rd pick, and then five other picks outside of the top 170.

Step 4. The NFL lets the remaining 29 teams enter a lottery to become Team D, where they receive the 4th pick, the 143rd pick, and then four other picks outside of the top 200.

Step 5. The NFL lets the remaining 28 teams enter a lottery to become Team E, where they receive the 5th pick, the 114th pick, the 142nd pick, and three other late round picks.

Step 6. The NFL does a random lottery for the other 27 teams, who will become Teams 1 through Team 27, and will have a reverse draft order for all rounds after the first round. The Jaguars and Dolphins, who own the first round picks for the Rams and Texans, respectively, would automatically be in this lot. Of course, Jacksonville and Miami are free to enter the earlier lotteries for their own picks.

The full 2020 NFL Draft order is in this attached Excel spreadsheet.

Finally, here is how each of the 30 teams — excluding Teams A and B who will mortgage the future for Lawrence and Fields — would finish in terms of draft capital, based on both the JJ Chart and the FP chart.

So, what do you think? Putting aside the fact that this would never, ever happen, which team would you want to be? What holes are there in this plan?