I think the disconnect here is highlighted in this post:
Yes. The cost of Luck is greater than the cost of luckboxing (your word) Tom Brady or whomever. (Ignore whether Luck's upside is greater than Brady; it doesn't matter. Really) A lot greater. Much, much greater. Many draft choices greater.

Which isn't the right thing to consider when deciding whom to draft.

Everyone involved in talent evaluation for every team, everyone involved in the draft, they all want to luckbox a hall of famer in every spot. They want it really, really hard. Because, as you say, it's way cheaper to get lucky than spend (in draft choices, dollars, whatever) on top picks. But that's the thing — given that scouting, and more importantly talent development, are imperfect, you need to get lucky. You need to get lucky to get a hall of fame player out of the very top spot; you need to get very, very lucky to get one out of the sixth round.

Essentially your argument is that it is not worth taking a relatively short-odds gamble on Luck because there are longer-odds gambles that have worked. Your plan — your own cost analysis above — is based on getting very lucky, on luckboxing the draft.

You will understand, I would think, that GMs do not count on luckboxing — that they are at least in theory attempting to maximize some metric of expected value over the set of all outcomes and the probabilities thereof.

Because when we decide whom to draft, we don't have those data.

Seriously ... duh.

How much better than Brady/Brees/Rodgers/Manning does Luck have to be to be worth 2 entire rounds?

So let's not account for teams "luckboxing" into good players later in the draft?

I would try to hold on to my 4-7 picks because teams don't value them that highly, but if I could draft any of those guys knowing they would become who they did, I would snap trade two drafts for them and would feel quite good about it.

So what is Luck worth about 14x as much as whoever will go #2 this year?

Somewhere between 13x and 15x imo

14 times? Are you really trying to say that every draft pick is equally valuable?

No they aren't but I don't have the draft value chart in front of me. I'm asking for the number if you know it. Threw out the number 14 so it was obvious what I was getting at.

If Tom Brady doesn't exist, does phb even attempt to make this argument?

How do you propose accounting for it, at draft time?

I mean, off the top of my head, the #2 overall pick in a draft is still extremely valuable. When you include that Luck is considered more valuable than the average overall #1 pick, and that future picks are less valuable than current picks, I'd say you're really talking more like 2-3x, if that. Which is certainly possible especially considering the value of a franchise QB relative to other positions.

Alright I just checked some other threads and I see I'm being ragged on in the Liveblog and the "Bad posters" thread (by a dude I've never heard of no less) so I'm gonna just stop talking now. Show's over, folks.

No better. He may not even have to be as good. He has to be better than the expected value of two entire teams-years' drafts. (Not sure where you got the two entire rounds thing.) Not if you somehow get to know that he'll be that good.

Because you don't draft finished products, nor even known quantities. You draft unknowns with certain probabilities, which you estimate, of becoming good.

The question is just whether the expected value of Luck — value if he's good times likelihood of it panning out, you could simplify it as — is better than the expected value of the other people you could draft, combined. Not better than they'll all be if they turn out great, better than they'll be on average. You don't get to cite Tom Brady, you get to cite Tom Brady times the odds of finding him in the sixth round.

You mean this wasn't intentional? Amazing.

Now I don't get to see many Stanford games, or Luck for that matter. But what about him makes him so "can't miss"? How much better is he than say... Stafford coming out?

I'll play along

using this chart-- the #2 overall pick is worth 2,600 points.

You said somewhere earlier we'd be trading from the 10th pick, so...

10 - 1,300
42 - 480
74 - 220
106 - 82
138 - 37
170 - 23.4
202 - 10.6

that adds up to 2,153. Even if you DON'T discount the second year's picks a round (as is commonly done), Luck doesn't even have to be 2x as valuable as the #2 overall pick for this to be a good trade. Given how highly he is regarded I would believe he is well worth the deal.

These are all the players that the Packers drafted from 2005-2008 (4 drafts) after Aaron Rodgers:

A. J. Hawk
Aaron Rouse
Abdul Hodge
Allen Barbre
Brady Poppinga
Brandon Jackson
Breno Giacomini
Brett Swain
Brian Brohm
Clark Harris
Cory Rodgers
Craig Bragg
Daryn Colledge
Dave Tollefson
David Clowney
DeShawn Wynn
Desmond Bishop
Greg Jennings
Ingle Martin
James Jones
Jason Spitz
Jeremy Thompson
Jermichael Finley
Johnny Jolly
Jordy Nelson
Josh Sitton
Junius Coston
Justin Harrell
Korey Hall
Kurt Campbell
Marviel Underwood
Mason Crosby
Matt Flynn
Mike Hawkins
Mike Montgomery
Nick Collins
Patrick Lee
Terrence Murphy
Tony Moll
Tyrone Culver
Will Blackmon
Will Whitticker
(bolded are players that have made some sort of contribution to the team)

Would it be worth trading all of these guys for Rodgers if you knew 100% for a fact (barring injury) that he would become the QB he is now? Would it be worth it at 75%? How about 50%? Would the Packers be a better team with Rodgers and a bunch of replacement level players replacing all of the above guys, or would they be better off with Matt Flynn as QB and all of the other guys?

I honestly can't remember the point I was trying to make, but I hope someone can get something out of this because it took me a while to organize the draft picks

You forgot to bold Will Blackmon

fyp

Oh my God. What has been seen, cannot be unseen.

It's not really quite a simple as saying replacement level players. If you're talking about undrafted free agents, they are typically far below a league average backup and you only have so many roster spots in training camp to figure out which guys can make it and which cannot.

If you're talking about vet free agents and such then the cost of those players is so much higher than 4 years of 2nd-7th round draft pick salaries so there is a cost in available cap$ to resign whoever the key players are you want around Rodgers.

There's just no cap neutral option for acquiring replacement level players without draft picks under today's or last year's CBA.

TT is really good at picking up UDFAs though.

Rodgers v Flynn + good interior line + v good receiving corps + couple LBs/DBs... I'd take Rodgers, I think chances of another ring within 3-5 years is higher. Better off immediately with the 4 drafts though (depending on how serviceable the replacements ended up being, that is).

Late night AIDS sneak attack I see