NFL Draft pick trade value chart: How teams make deals with a number assigned to every spot in 2026 originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The NFL Draft is a lot more art than science, except when it comes to trading draft picks.

That's because there's a chart for that, one that assigns a value to every spot in the draft. So with the 2026 NFL Draft about to get underway, it's worth taking a look.

The system was created by Mike McCoy in the 1990s to be utilized by Jimmy Johnson to help the Cowboys get a leg up.

Now, everyone knows the chart -- and so teams either need to create their own systems or recognize that, on paper, they're trading with exactly the same values.

The chart for 2026 helps at least make sense of most of them (although future picks are always a bit ambiguous in terms of value.

MORE: The full origin story of ESPN's NFL Draft pick chime

This is the full value chart for the 2026 NFL Draft (with order as of Thursday morning), with values via Pro Football Reference:

Essentially, you can add the value numbers up to see how a certain combination of draft picks equates to a different combination of draft picks.

Trades won't always come out exactly equal, but this definitely provides a solid idea.

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