Shaun Wade to the Patriots

[mikcou]

It pretty clearly does apply during the regular season, as well as the offseason well before the draft, we only need to look at trades to see that, including the Michel trade, which was re-worked to add value when the pick was pushed back a year.

Edit- what is the evidence that teams don't prioritize earlier picks than later picks? I can't think of any, where the pre-comp pick trades, and other seem to make it clear that earlier picks have more value than later picks of the same round.

It clearly is a throughout the year thing that picks in closer draft years are worth more than equivalent picks in years that are further out. Which makes sense because absent some compelling reason to think draft year X+1is going to be considerably better than X, having the pick in the earlier year provides additional options on draft day as it always easier to trade out than to trade in.