Oct 25, 2012; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Percy Harvin (12) against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Metrodome. The Buccaneers defeated the Vikings 36-17. Mandatory Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

In the wake of the fairly surprising Clint Avril signing, the Percy Harvin addition may seem like old news. If you’ll indulge me, I wanted to revisit the Harvin acquisition anyway.

First off I’d like to say that I am a big fan of the move because I think Percy Harvin is a unique talent who makes this offence 12.8%* more dangerous. His YAC ability, blazing speed and versatility make him enormously valuable and at 24 he is at a juncture in his career where his production is likely to ascend over the next couple of years. Pre- prime players who are already stars don’t often make their way to the trade market. When they do, the cost is bound to be high. That’s what I will discuss today.

No NFL transaction exists in a vacuum, if I were to ask any Seahawks fan a week ago, “Hey, would you like to have Percy Harvin on the Seahawks?” the overwhelming majority of them would have said, “Yes please.” However, a small minority of alert fans/cynics would ask, “What is it going to cost me?” Harvin is a great player but regardless of his greatness there is a price that would be too high for his services.

Minnesota couldn’t have simply asked for three 1^st round picks and Russell Wilson. When analyzing the price of Harvin there are two components. The first one being the draft picks the Seahawks sent to Minnesota. The second one being Harvin’s lucrative contract extension.

The Cost of Percy Harvin Part One: Draft Picks

When the trade was all said and done the Seahawks had given Minnesota the 25^th overall pick, and a 7^th round pick in the 2013 draft, and a 3^rd round pick in the 2014 draft. The real question to the value of these picks is what kind of players one can expect to acquire if they were to be used by Seattle. The centerpiece of the deal is the 25^th overall pick this year so forgive me if I spend approximately 647† times more effort determining its value. In ascending order of value:

2013 7^th round pick: The Seahawks have the 8^th, 14^th and 25^th picks in the 7^th round and I was unable to determine which one went to Minnesota but ultimately it doesn’t make a ton of difference. A 7^th round pick is a virtual lottery ticket in terms of acquiring an NFL caliber special teams player, let alone a starter or difference maker of any kid. Do not let the loss of this pick trouble you.

2014 3^rd round pick: This pick is actually significant. Third round picks tend to play some kind of role in the NFL and finding a starter here is far from unheard of. Stars like NaVarro Bowman, Eric Decker, and of course Russell Wilson were all 3^rd round picks, as well as the newest Seahawk, Clint Avril. A 3^rd round pick is far from a sure thing but if you choose wisely you can find a very cost effective starter. If I knew exactly which pick this would be I’d give some examples of previous examples of players chosen at that spot but alas I don’t feel comfortable slotting Seattle in for the 32^nd spot just yet. It should be considered that Seattle is fairly certain to be picking in the bottom section of the round, making this worse than most 3^rd round picks but far from an insignificant asset.

2013 1^st round pick (25^th overall): The is is the biggest asset that the Seahawks will be relinquishing and by a fairly heavy margin. I’ve provided a list of recent 25th pick selections with a brief career summary to give you an idea of the kind of players available.

2000: Chris Hovan DT- Vikings

Hovan was an undersized penetrating DT who had a 10 year career concluding in 2009. He was very durable playing in 156 of a possible 160 games, including 149 starts. The peak of his career came in 2001-2002 when he had 11.5 sacks and was 2^nd team All-Pro. It was a good pick that got a good player who was great at times.

2001: Freddie Mitchell WR- Eagles

Although Freddie Mitchell was an interesting character who had some memorable moments in his career, he will likely be remembered as a disappointment and a bust. Mitchell lasted 4 years in the NFL where he was only able to total 1263 yards and 5 touchdowns despite catching balls from a then-elite Donavan McNabb. Hardly a Ryan Leaf caliber bust, but not a good player and not even really a starter. He only started 17 games over four years despite dressing for 63.

2002: Charles Grant DE- Saints

Grant was a stout DE at 6-3 282 who was known for a well-rounded game. His best years were in 2003 and 2004 when he put up 10 and 10.5 sacks respectively. In his later years Grant was less of a pure pass rusher but remained a valuable starter. Grant would end his career at age 31 with 47 career sacks. He spent all 8 years of his career with the Saints, starting 106 games for them. Another pick used to grab a good long-term starter.

2003: William Joseph DT- Giants

Joseph had a quiet 6 year career (four with the Giants) in which he totaled 17 starts and 7 sacks. He started 10 games in 2005 but was never able to crack the starting lineup with any regularity otherwise. Joseph had the kind of career that thousands of NFL hopefuls would die for but not one expected from a 1^st round pick.

2004: Ahmad Carroll CB- Packers

Carroll is a player that I recall being poorly thought of by Packers fans when he started for them in 2004 and 2005. That makes sense considering he was a special teams player for the rest of his career which ended in 2009. Much like William Joseph, the 5 year career that Carroll had, including 28 starts, is the envy of many players but it isn’t exactly what a team would want from its first round pick. On the plus side, Carroll had some success in the CFL where he won the Grey Cup last year with the Toronto Argonauts and promptly retired. So in a way he sailed off into the sunset, sort of.

2005: Jason Campbell QB- Redskins

Campbell was a QB that I always kind of liked but he wasn’t a franchise quarterback. In the end, when your 1^st round quarterback isn’t a franchise quarterback, he will be considered a disappointment. The conservative Campbell has only thrown for 20 TD’s once and has a disappointing 6.7 career yards per attempt. Campbell is the kind of guy who is probably in the top 32 best quarterbacks around at any given time but you know that if he’s starting for your team you are in need of a different solution. It is hard to evaluate a player like this who is good, but not good enough, and has been a starter, but shouldn’t have been. To be fair to Campbell, he never had a ton to work with in either Washington or Oakland.

2006: Santonio Holmes WR- Steelers

Probably the first player we’ve dealt with so far who many would consider to be an elite talent. The 2008 Super Bowl MVP has had an excellent career with 5,507 yards and 35 TD’s, along with 59.9 yards receiving per game, so far. His numbers have declined since going to the Jets, due in large part to poor QB play. Currently he seems to be spending his prime languishing on an awful team with an awful passing offense. He’s making enough money that I don’t feel too sorry for him, though. Overall, Holmes is an excellent player and an excellent pick.

2007: Jon Beason MLB- Panthers

Beason is an absolute stud. Or rather, he was. It’s hard to say exactly. In Beason’s first four years in the league he was a Pro Bowler thrice and a first team All-Pro once. He was a tackling machine who was a major asset to a relatively inept Carolina defense in both the rushing and passing games. Unfortunately, Beason has only played 5 games in the last two years due to injury and it’s pretty difficult to project what his career might look like from here. Even so, most teams would take 64 excellent starts and 3 Pro Bowl appearances from their 1^st round picks.

2008: Mike Jenkins CB- Cowboys

Jenkins is currently a free agent and I haven’t heard of any team expressing interest yet. Not to say that his NFL career is done but that should give some indication of where Mike Jenkins is at. Jenkins made the Pro Bowl in 2009 after hauling in 5 interceptions and deflecting 19 passes but has never been able to repeat that impressiveness. In his five years in the league he has amassed only 8 interceptions and he lost his starting gig with Dallas last year. Jenkins was a starter for 3 years, one of them good and that in itself has some value but the perception of him suffers because he never lived up to the promise he showed in his second season.

2009: Vontae Davis CB- Dolphins

The fact the Vontae Davis is already on his second team is somewhat alarming, but the Colts corner has been a solid starter over the last four years who may not have reached his potential yet. At 24 it seems a bit early to render judgment on the athletic Davis other than to say that he is already an established starter in the NFL and that bodes well for him. He is probably a better player than at least half of the players listed above him.

2010: Tim Tebow QB- Broncos

There are a million things that could be said about Tim Tebow. This article is about Percy Harvin so I will refrain from a tempting tangent. I will say that, in my humble opinion, Tim Tebow is not a good quarterback. He may well be an adequate football player in a different capacity. Even so, he should be thought of as a disappointment in the context of being a 1^st round pick.

2011: James Carpenter OT- Seahawks

There are reasons to be disappointed with this pick. They include injury concerns and the fact that Carpenter lacks the feet to play right tackle, a positon of need on the Seahawks. The fact is, however, Carpenter looks capable of becoming a quality starter at guard. If you can get a quality starter it’s hard to complain especially when you are picking late enough in the first round that the truly elite talents are unlikely to be available. This looks like a fine pick if Carpenter can stay healthy.

2012: Don’t’a Hightower- ILB Patriots

Hightower started 13 games as a rookie and was productive with 4 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries and a touchdown. He looks like a keeper but it’s really far too early to say if this was a wise pick for the patriots.

That’s the list. There are some good players but there are very few elite players. Beason is undoubtedly one, providing 3 of the 4 collective Pro Bowl appearances among these 13 players. You could probably argue that Santonio Holmes was an elite player with Pittsburgh and he is a Superbowl MVP so that’s 2 elite players (15%). Elite can be subjective so let’s talk about starters.

If we generously call James Carpenter and Don’t’a Hightower starters we have 10 starters (although Carroll and Campbell could be viewed as disappointments in the role). I suspect that’s an unusually high number for this area of the draft and given the small sample I imagine it’s not very predictive. I would guess that if you included picks 23 through 27 you would find a higher bust rate. This list of 25^th picks is more descriptive of the type of player you are likely to find in that spot than predictive of the future in any way.

This history suggests that at the 25^th pick you are likely to find a solid starter for your team who is not a Pro Bowler. Hovan, Grant, Jenkins and Davis fall into this category with Carpenter and Hightower probable to. On the surface it seems very unlikely that you will find a Harvin-quality player. However, the Vikings don’t necessarily need to find a Harvin quality player to come away from this trade ok. The beauty of a late first round pick  is that not only are you likely to get a starter, you are likely to get one at an incredibly low price. Last year Don’t’a’ Hightower got a 4 year contract worth 7.7 million from the Patriots out of the draft, which is absolute peanuts when you consider what a 22 year old starting caliber linebacker could fetch on a hypothetical open market.

The 25^th pick is immensely valuable because the Vikings are not only likely to restock their talent but at an incredibly discount. When you add that to the 7^th round lottery ticket and the substantial but somewhat mysterious 2014 3^rd round pick you are looking at quite the haul for Minnesota and a heavy price paid for Seattle. Now let’s look more briefly (I promise) at the contract.

The Cost of Percy Harvin Part Two: Harvin’s Extension

I realize the journey to determine what the Seahawks gave up in draft picks was a long one so I’ll try and be a bit shorter here. (The reality is that if brevity is truly the soul of wit than I am a truly witless man.) Sometimes numbers speak louder than words so I’m going to throw up a career stats and contract comparison of Percy Harvin to Mike Wallace and Dwayne Bowe, the big WR’s who signed as free agents this year.

Of the three, Harvin is the youngest, cheapest (on a yearly basis), and most productive, on a per game basis. The Seahawks are paying the market price for a receiver of Harvin’s skill level. That means that Harvin’s surplus value comes from extraordinary production, not a team friendly contract, but that’s ok. Harvin is capable of providing elite production and has done so in the past with regularity. His youth also makes the contract more sensible as the Chiefs will be paying a premium for some of Dwayne Bowe’s decline years, and while the Dolphins get years 26-31 with Wallace, which should be productive, I’m more confident in Harvin’s 24-30 years as they make up the heart of his prime. There is no doubt that this is an expensive contract but it is a fair contract and the Seahawks are paying a premium price for a premium player.

Overall I hope this gives you a sense of what it costs to get a 24 year old star like Percy Harvin. The Seahawks relinquished a draft pick that is likely to provide value, both in terms of talent and a cap friendly salary, and two others, as well as giving Harvin a contract that he must continue to produce in order to justify. The cost is high. We cannot pretend the Seahawks did not pay dearly for Percy Harvin.

People are often naturally risk-averse and this is a risk. I think that this is a risk Seattle won’t regret because Harvin is the rare player who can produce enough to justify his salary. It is my belief this move makes this team better in the short and long term but Minnesota got their’s too (especially when you consider the cap room they save by not extending Harvin). It was far from the steal, though. This deal is high risk, high reward and high stakes. Sounds like an awful lot of fun to me. Also sounds an awful lot like Pete Carroll.

*If you remember this asterisk from the beginning of the article congratulations. I just wanted you to note that I made that number up based on absolutely nothing (but it sounds vaguely plausible right?). It’s important to be transparent.

† Apparently I was in the making up number mood today…