(From left) Ki-Jana Carter, LaDainian Tomlinson, Chris Hinton and Orlando Pace all have connections to trades involving #1-overall draft picks

The seven players the Jets got from those series of trade downs were LB James Farrior, WR Dedric Ward, RB Leon Johnson, DT Jason Ferguson, DE Terry Day, QB Chuck Clements and TE Lawrence Hart. Farrior proved to be a very good player but the majority of his career was spent in Pittsburgh. Ferguson was a good player, too, and an especially good value as a seventh-round pick. Ward and Johnson had so-so NFL careers. Day, Clements and Hart did virtually nothing in the NFL.

Reverse the deal now. Would St. Louis at any point in Orlando Pace's career trade him for Farrior, Ferguson and a handful of low-impact players? Certainly not. In this case, the advantage goes to the team trading up.

1995: Expansion Panthers move out of top slot

The Carolina Panthers were given the first pick in the draft in 1995, when they and the Jacksonville Jaguars entered the league as expansion teams. That meant the Panthers could justify just about any pick that would give them a franchise cornerstone at one of the most important positions.

The most important position is quarterback, of course. The Panthers could have stayed put at #1 and had their choice of Steve McNair, Kerry Collins, Todd Collins or Kordell Stewart. Instead, they traded down four spots with the Cincinnati Bengals, who used the top spot to take Penn State running back Ki-Jana Carter.

Carter tore an ACL on his third preseason carry for the Bengals and battled injuries throughout his very disappointing NFL career. The Panthers took the fifth-overall pick and landed Kerry Collins, though they missed out on McNair, who went to the Houston Oilers at #3. They got the Bengals' second-round pick in the deal (#36 overall) and spent it on DE Shawn King, who was a complete bust in part due to a string of substance-abuse suspensions. Collins had his own problems early in his career due to alcohol abuse, and while he did make the Pro Bowl and lead the Panthers to the NFC Championship Game in 1996, he lasted less than four years in Carolina.

There isn't a clear winner in this deal, in part because both teams missed out on a ton of better options in that 1995 draft. The Buccaneers ended up with a pair of Hall-of-Famers in that same first round in Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks, and that same opening stanza produced McNair, Tony Boselli, Kevin Carter, Joey Galloway, Hugh Douglas, Ty Law, Korey Stringer, Mark Bruener and another five to 10 very good NFL players. Advantage to the team trading down, the Panthers, for getting the most successful player in the deal, but it's not an overwhelming win.

1990: Colts go after Jeff George

It's not surprising to see quarterbacks figure prominently in these deals, and in 1990 it was Indianapolis that was intent on getting its man. In this case, that was big-armed Illinois passer Jeff George.

This is the same Indianapolis franchise that would take Peyton Manning first overall in 1998 and then move directly from the Manning era into the Andrew Luck era with the first overall pick in 2002. That's a one-two QB draft punch that might never be equaled. In 1990, however, they were coming off a decade or so of messing around with the likes of Mike Pagel, Jack Trudeau and Jeff Chandler. One could understand their desire for a franchise savior under center.

George wasn't it. He could throw the ball a mile but never had a 3,000-yard season or a passer rating better than 76.3 in four years with the Colts. Moreover, his record as a starter was 14-35. Ironically, he would move from the Colts directly to the Falcons, starting all 32 games during the 1994-95 seasons.

To move from #5 up to #1 to get George, the Colts shipped a fifth-round pick in 1990, a first-round pick in 1991 to the Falcons, along with established veterans Chris Hinton and Andre Rison. That's where the deal got lopsided. Hinton was a 28-year-old stud left tackle, and he went on to start four seasons for the Falcons (albeit at RT and RG). We might have been stretching it to call Rison an "established veteran," as he played just one season in Indy after being drafted #22 overall in 1989, but he was definitely a coveted asset in 1990. Rison would go on to a 10,000-yard NFL career, including five extremely productive years in Atlanta.