I think there’s a lot of merit to the idea that if you add up the costs to move up to 23 and then to again to move up to 17 you were better off getting all those picks than getting the average player you would normally get at 17.
Obviously Turner is not normally drafted at 17. I still think there’s some merit to the idea that all the costs to move up to 23 and then again to move up to 17, you’d be better off getting all those picks than the expected value of Turner (given that he has some % chance of busting, or being merely adequate).
But for me, I think you have to separate the two trades. We didn’t trade up to 23 to take an edge. We traded up to 23 to have the ammo to go get our QB. It was a sunk cost at that point. The tradeup from 23 to 17 was clearly worth it. We went and got the #1 edge on a lot of boards, who matches our scheme needs to a tee. All the other top tier edges/DTs were gone by 23 and would have required a trade up to go get, so I think the most appropriate way to look at it would be to compare a tradeup for Turner vs a tradeup for say Chops Robinson. I think the little bit extra to go get the best edge in the league on our board vs the 4th best edge in the league was worth it.