TittyMeat brought up a point about trading back out of the 1st round and the value of the 5-year option. He's not the only one I've seen here express how valuable that option is.

My question is, just how valuable do you believe it is?

As a reminder, the 1st through 10th picks in round 1 are valued the same as the Transition Tender - the average of the top 10 annual salaries at his position.

For picks 11 through 32, they are valued at the average of the top 3rd-25th annual salaries at his position.

Just going off of my memory (which is often shaky at best), is that it isn't often a player is "worth" the 5th year option value if they are taken outside of the top 10. We saw it last couple years with some CBs making 8.5-9 million on an option year and none of them deserving, such as Darqueze Dennard (2018), Trae Waynes (2019), and so forth.

So the real question is, is it really worth the option year versus getting additional draft capital? You can still re-sign a player or use a franchise or transition tag if the player is worthwhile.

Personally, I'd rather have the opportunity to improve 2 positions for 4 years than 1 position for 5, especially given that the likelihood of getting a real return on investment for using the option year on a player taken at the very end of round 1 "seems" extremely small.
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