Another NFL draft has come and gone, and with it has come the predictable displays of unyielding optimism, stale and arguably race-based generalizations of player skill, and, as a relative newcomer in 2016, lazy misuse of the term analytics.

In following along this spring, it became clear that what is mainstream knowledge among researchers is far from it in the national media. This despite a decent amount of both academic and non-academic research into the topic.

For those new to the scene, or even for a few veterans who may have missed an article or two along the way, I decided to write a quick review of what’s out there. Note that many of the following points are related to one another.

1. Top draft picks are overvalued. 

In an efficient market, the value of picks traded between teams would be equivalent.  That is, if Pick X was traded for Picks Y and Z…