How’d giving away garbage bags full of draft picks work out for these NFL teams?

The NFL Draft is easily the second-most important event on the league’s annual calendar, with most teams that privately know they won’t be close to winning the Super Bowl prepping for the three-day event. Yet, there are still plenty of teams who don’t take an active role in the draft. In each of the last 10 NFL Drafts, including this year’s edition, at least one franchise hasn’t selected or isn’t slated to pick a player in the top 50 positions. They’ve traded away assets to win now or never recovered future pieces from past deals.

How’d those teams fare dating back to 2014? We’ll take a look here if the risk of not taking the cream-of-the-crop prospects paid off. Spoiler: for some it did and for others, it was a colossal failure. Two teams appear on the countdown twice, while six others followed suit with one of these weird distinctions, starting with how the Bay Area’s team is preparing for a long wait to add to its roster.

The 49ers’ first three selections were all traded away to move up in the 2021 NFL Draft and to acquire a guy you might’ve heard of named Christian McCaffrey. Hope he pans out. And San Francisco looks to be one of the teams in the league that don’t need much to improve in the draft. Outside of the team’s uncertainty at quarterback, the 49ers are basically set.

This is the only section where we don’t currently know how it plays out. It’s hard to believe the 49ers, even with their quarterback drama, won’t win a postseason game at the least. With San Francisco’s little needs in the draft, this shouldn’t set the franchise back too heavily. John Lynch has also proven to be deft at finding hidden gems.

The Rams were on top of the football world. The then-defending Super Bowl champions didn’t care that no big-name rookies were coming to the team. To acquire Matthew Stafford and Von Miller, the team’s traditional picks in the first three rounds of the 2022 NFL Draft went away. And they weren’t missed. Yet.

How quickly the mighty fell. Things went from great to horrible quickly in Los Angeles as the Rams went 5-12 and didn’t come close to trying to defend their championship and many of the assets the team required are now gone too, the latest being Allen Robinson leaving Hollywood for Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

Both the Texans’ picks in the first and second rounds were sold for Laremy Tunsil, including the No. 3 overall pick which eventually landed with San Francisco’s selection of Trey Lance. At least Houston addressed a major need with its first pick in 2021, taking Davis Mills. And that worked so well that the Texans could easily take at No. 2 this year whichever quarterback the Carolina Panthers don’t at No. 1.

Of course, the Texans have been a joke of a franchise for most of their existence, but they didn’t finish last in their division. A record of 4-13 rarely does anything good though and the franchise hasn’t turned anything around. That sounds about right by giving up such valuable draft capital for an offensive lineman.

The Bills’ first-round selection went to the Minnesota Vikings for Stefon Diggs. At No. 22 overall, the Vikings took a wide receiver from LSU named Justin Jefferson. He’s now the best wide receiver in the league. Ouch. But yet, the Bills making that deal helped elevate the franchise to be one of the NFL’s best.

Buffalo went 13-3 in 2020 and has been on the doorstep of a Super Bowl for the last several seasons, but has yet to truly put together the pieces necessary to get out of the AFC’s weeds. The Bills did grab some valuable pieces from the 2020 draft, including wide receiver Gabe Davis, and linebacker A.J. Epenesa.

The Bears’ first-round pick was sold for Khalil Mack and their second-round selection was given away to make space for Kansas City to take Mecole Hardman. And outside of David Montgomery, none of Chicago’s selections from the draft truly panned out, leading to an 8-8 record in the Windy City.

The Rams’ trades involving two wide receivers, Brandin Cooks, and Sammy Watkins, placed the Rams selecting for the first time five years ago in the third round. A trade-back landed them at No. 89, where they selected Joseph Noteboom. The Rams had a regular-season record of 13-3 and rode that all the way to losing one of the worst Super Bowls of all time to the Patriots. Speaking of New England, here they are twice in a row on the countdown.

Coming off of a Super Bowl victory over the Falcons, the Patriots were squarely in the middle of their trade-down era. But not in 2017 when they only had four draft picks. New England waited until the third round after trading back twice and selling its first-round pick for Brandin Cooks. The Patriots’ dynasty continued on, falling in the Super Bowl to the Eagles after a 13-3 regular season.

Before that overtime-championship victory, the Patriots waited until late in the second round to make their first selection of the 2016 NFL Draft. Waiting to choose in this instance wasn’t because of trading back, it was due to Deflategate. Remember that controversy? All this hate for New England comes running back. And the Patriots were 14-2 in the regular season. Ew.

Coming off the team’s second-straight Super Bowl appearance, and the most recent being the Marshawn Lynch-Malcolm Butler fiasco, the Seahawks didn’t choose in the first round to acquire Jimmy Graham. Seattle did go 10-6 and lost in the NFC Divisional Round to eventual Super Bowl runners-up Carolina. At No. 63, the Seahawks took Frank Clark, who is now balling out for the Chiefs.

With a spry, talented quarterback like Andrew Luck, the Colts had a win-now mentality in the mid-2010s, making their appearance on this countdown not as shocking as you may think. Indianapolis traded for Trent Richardson and gave up its first-round pick in the process. And that investment led to getting blown out 45-7 in the AFC Championship Game that season by the Patriots.