Seems like an odd way to value a player. I understand the logic of it, but I would guess it's pretty rare for any player to bring back a pick as high as the one he was taken with. If a player is getting traded, there's usually a good reason why he doesn't get similar value. Cutler, ironically, is a rare exception of a top 15 pick getting a top 15 pick + in return. I'm not sure why you are trying to characterize trades the way you are. Trades in general are rare in the NFL. There's a couple different reasons for them. A) A team doesn't want the guy so they move him to another team, or B) A player outperforms expectations but the team that has him has another guy in place and so they trade him to a team that can use him. This often happens with QBs, like Cassel and Kolb. And on occasion, a team doesn't have interest in signing an extension to a star player and they move him for pretty high value, like Richard Seymour. All of those guys were traded for value at or above where they were taken. If a player is taken in the 1st round, then gets traded 5 years later for a 3rd round pick, his team was trying to get rid of him and he didn't live up to his 1st round status. I'm not arguing that Olsen lived up to his 1st round status. I even agree that those are the reasons players get traded. It was just weird to see "he was picked 31st and traded for 70th pick". Basically my point is not that he didn't live up to his billing because he didn't get the Bears a 1st round pick, but he didn't live up to his billing for the simple fact that he did get traded. Obviously, it's not a case where he was a star and or at a position of great depth like Seymour or Cassel so that puts him in the A category, which I agree with. For a player to be in the A category, it means he didn't live up to his billing.