BetMissouri.com - home to all news ahead of the launch of Missouri sports betting - used Pro-Football-Reference.com to find the rookie year AV for each team’s first pick in the first round of the NFL Drafts in 2024, 2023, and 2022. If a team had multiple first round picks, we only counted the first selection the team made and each team had to have at least two first round picks during our timeframe.
We then found the average AV over the three seasons to see how it impacts how a team will do the following season. Based on our findings, 80% of the teams with the lowest AV for their first-round picks ended up in the NFL playoffs between the 2022-23 and 2024-25 seasons. The only teams without any playoff appearances are the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts.
Rank | Team | Average AV |
1 | Indianapolis Colts | 2.5 |
2 | Green Bay Packers | 3.0 |
3 | Minnesota Vikings | 3.5 |
T-4 | Cincinnati Bengals | 3.7 |
T-4 | Kansas City Chiefs | 3.7 |
T-4 | Philadelphia Eagles | 3.7 |
7 | Baltimore Ravens | 4.3 |
8 | Dallas Cowboys | 4.7 |
9 | Buffalo Bills | 5.0 |
10 | Tennessee Titans | 5.3 |
Of the 32 teams in the NFL, the teams with the worst luck of late in the first round of the NFL Draft have been franchises like the Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings, which may be of some surprise to football fans in the Midwest given how much success the latter two have had in recent years.
While Indy last reached the postseason in 2020 and three times in total between 2014 and 2024, Green Bay and Minnesota have made it 13 times in total between the two clubs, with the Packers reaching the postseason eight times during that 10-year period while their divisional rivals to the west have done so five times.
In total, Indy’s average AV of 2.5 between 2022 and 2025 placed the AFC South squad just ahead of the league’s unenviable draft list, with Green Bay (3.0 average AV) and Minnesota (3.5 average AV) finishing ahead of teams like the Cincinnati Bengals, Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, who all had average AV totals of 3.7 during the period in question.
Based on those results, it seems clear that a lack of AV production isn’t a prerequisite for on-field success, as the Chiefs and Eagles have won the last three Super Bowls, while the Bengals reached the Big Game in 2021, and Green Bay and Minnesota have been success stories in the league during that period.
Of the other four teams to place in the bottom 10 of the NFL, AV wise, only the Titans have missed out on the postseason each year between 2022-23 and 2024-25, with Tennessee placing 10th leaguewide with an average first round pick AV of 5.3, placing just behind the Buffalo Bills (5.0 average AV), Dallas Cowboys (4.7 average AV) and Baltimore Ravens (4.3 average AV).
Locally, during that three-year period, Kansas City’s three first round picks (Xavier Worthy in 2024, Felix Anudike-Uzomah in 2023 and Trent McDuffie in 2022) produced disparate AV totals during their respective rookie campaigns, with Worthy posting the best AV total (7 in 17 games), compared with 3 AV for McDuffie in 2022 and 1 AV for Anudike-Uzomah back in 2023.
This year, K.C. will look to bolster the team’s first round AV production when the club picks 31st overall in Green Bay on April 24, with the reigning AFC champions longing to climb the ranks when it comes to AV production from first round picks in the 32-team league. Bookmark our Chiefs Super Bowl odds page ahead of the season.
*Created by PFR founder Doug Drinen, the Approximate Value (AV) method is an attempt to put a single number on the seasonal value of a player at any position from any year (since 1960).
USA Today photo by Mark J. Rebilas.
Author
Christopher Boan is a lead writer for BetMissouri.com, specializing in covering state issues. He has covered sports and sports betting in Arizona for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
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