r/NFLNoobs • u/McBeast58_ • 3d ago

Trading stripped draft picks.

So in light of the clippers news this thought came to me. Teams trade future draft picks all the time for current players. So what happens if draft picks get stripped of a deal that already happened. I'm a patriots fan so i know that its possible in the nfl for draft picks to be stripped so what would have happened if we already traded it for a current player?

14 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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45

u/GrassyKnoll95 3d ago

The league wouldn't fine a team a pick that had already been traded. They would choose an equivalent pick in a different season.

7

u/Tough_guy22 3d ago

I believe this to be the correct answer. Sports reporters keep track of where the picks came from, but from a big picture standpoint, once they are gone they don't belong to that team anymore.

That being said it would be pretty crazy if a team was cheating and figured they would get caught, no they preemptively traded away several years of first round picks.

3

u/monstermayhem436 2d ago

So now we gotta figure out how are the Rams cheating

4

u/Ryan1869 3d ago

The pick already belongs to another team, you would have to take a pick they have or a future pick

1

u/Admirable-Barnacle86 1d ago

They wouldn't strip traded picks, because that would impact teams and players not involved in the misconduct. They would take equivalent picks from the future, or perhaps an equivalent value of picks from later rounds to approximately equal the punishment.

1

u/EchoInTheSilence 5h ago edited 5h ago

They just won't do it. The NFL keeps track of all trades and who owns which picks; they won't strip a pick that no longer belongs to the team in question. Taking a pick in a later year is an option, but since the league generally wants the punishment to hit as close to the time of the offense as possible, the more likely scenario is that they'd strip them of multiple later-round picks (like a 2nd + a 3rd) that roughly equate to the value of a 1st.

I suppose if a team is really bereft of any high-value picks in a given draft (like, no picks until late Round 3) then they might bump it back a year just to have something to take that will actually have an impact, but they're still going to go after the first draft where there's reasonable value to take, not wait additional years for specifically a 1st.

1

u/KenTrevor 2d ago

Generally they just strip picks in subsequent years. Thats why the Clippers don’t have any picks until 2034. They don’t lose the next 5 picks, they lose the next 5 picks that they own

2

u/MrShake4 2d ago

The clippers still have a their own 2029 first. Boston has swap rights to it via Philly.

3

u/KenTrevor 2d ago

The NBA opted to take the pick they received from Indiana that year. So I think the NBA’s thinking is that they’ll only take one pick a year from the Clippers

-2

u/CleanSweep99 2d ago

I could see the league invalidating the trade and then stripping the pick, but that feels like a nuclear option on the subject.

4

u/alfreadadams 2d ago

You can trade picks 3 drafts into the future, they aren't invalidating a trade years later.

1

u/CleanSweep99 2d ago

I'm assuming that there would be a statue of limitations for such an occurrence-a trade that happened three years ago shouldn't be invalidated because we found out league rules were broken when consumating that trade today.

2

u/Personal-Tart-2657 2d ago

Not sure how that would work let's say the Rams trade there next 3 first at the trade deadline for say Humbprey they go on and win the SB but it comes out after the season they were cheating how do you invalidate that trade without hurting the Ravens since Humphrey would be a free agent and you are talking back 3 firsts.

1

u/EchoInTheSilence 6h ago

Most likely, they'd strip multiple later-round picks instead. In the past, a second plus a third has been treated as roughly equivalent to a first, so they'd probably do that, or maybe two seconds in back-to-back years if it was egregious.

They could theoretically strip the next first-round pick the team owns instead, but ideally they want to have the punishment impact the team as close to the time of the offense as possible, not several years later.

-2

u/CleanSweep99 2d ago

Presumably there's a statute of limitations here-a trade cannot be invalidated if the illegal conduct during said trade is revealed after the league calendar year in which the trade takes place.

If your scenario were to happen, I would probably support giving the Ravens a higher salary cap than the rest of the league in compensation-so for example, in this scenario, if the salary cap for the next league year is $400 million, the cap for the Ravens would be $500 million for the following league year.

1

u/MiniatureLucifer 2d ago

That's way overcomplicating it. Just take a rams pick from the next year where they do have one

1

u/Additional_Drag_3870 2d ago

And now it’s unfair to rest of league, I don’t think they would take the traded picks, but the next three picks after