I don't think anyone is saying Watson should get traded for a decade's worth of first round picks, just that the draft capital the Pats are working with doesn't come close to matching the price Watson should command. The Pats 1st and 2nd rounders the next two drafts hardly adds up to what has been traded for top QB prospects in recent years, and it's hardly a stretch to expect a team or teams in position to offer a more attractive package will offer more for a 25 years old superstar on a below market deal for the next 5 years. If the cost is 15 + 46 + 2 low firsts in '22 and '23, Miami has that offer beat with 3 + 18 alone.
I think I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. Watson is a tricky valuation because he is
sui generis so there really aren't any good comps. The closest comps as starting points are the top-end players, in their prime, who got traded (e.g.. Tunsil or Mack) or the top-3 level draft picks, who were acquired in order to pick a QB. In the case of the former, you would then need to account for positional value, perhaps using franchise tag pricing as a quantifiable multiple. In the case of the latter, you would need to take a stab at valuing the known star vs the unknown future, while also factoring in short-term salary differences.
Khalil Mack is probably about as close to a comp as you will see. At the time of his trade, he was in the midst of a holdout (in his case, it was about contract demands). He was also coming off multiple All-Pro nods, including having been named All-Pro at two positions (first player ever to do so), and just a year away from being DPOY. The Raiders received the Bears' 2019 and 2020 first-round picks, a sixth-round pick in 2019, and a third-round pick in 2020 for Mack, the Raiders' 2020 second-round pick, and a conditional 2020 fifth-round pick that turned into a seventh-round pick. So not all that huge a haul for OAK, in my opinion.
In the case of Laremy Tunsil, he was entering his 5th year option, with not even any Pro Bowls to his name, when he,
Kenny Stills, and a fourth-round pick were traded to the
Houston Texans in exchange for two first-round picks, a second-round pick,
Johnson Bademosi, and
Julien Davenport.
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Regardless of how you did your valuation of Watson, once you had it in hand, you could look at how the Pats could generate that value. In any case, in my opinion, any picks past this draft have to be considered in essence equal to those coming from another team. In other words, a 2022 draft pick coming from the Pats would have to be weighed essentially the same as such a pick coming from any other team.