Is there merit in trading back late in the first round?

Brandon Beane, general manager of then Buffalo Bills, heads off the field at the end of practice at the Buffalo Bills training camp at St. John Fisher University in Pittsford on July 24, 2025. | Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images For almost 20 years now, the Buffalo Rumblings comments section has been a treasure trove of smart, insightful — often hilarious — quips from Buffalo Bills fans.

Late in my first week on the job, I found two comments on the article I wrote about the Bills’ 2026 draft being viewed by executives and scouts around the league as ‘modernized thinking’ that sparked my interest in doing a study. By the way, I welcome these type of discussions in comment sections in future, ones that pose a question that leads to me nerd-ing out and generates an article for the site (making a series from this would be amazing). This particular article was born from a bozzman1106 comment that stated the following: If we look at picks 25-32 over the last 10 years, there have only been 10 players selected in that range that have made a Pro Bowl with 2 of those 8 making it as alternates.

Of those 8 players, only 2 have made the Pro Bowl more then once, TJ Watt and Tre’Davious White. So when people want to complain about not taking a guy at the end of the first round and trading back into the second round, you have a 12. 5% chance of selecting a guy at the end of the first round that could make a Pro Bowl.

So if I am a GM and I have a chance to do what Beane did and move out of the first while then moving up in rounds 3 and 4, why would you not do that? Then Hornell Fred added a very logical retort: The opening paragraph in Fred’s comment sent me on a research mission. I assumed the initial 10-year time frame from bozzman1106’s comment was 2016 – 2025 (10 draft classes), so I checked all those 80 picks from No.