OPTIMIZATION UNDER CONSTRAINTS. Constant coverage on the news radio stations today about the NFL draft. Curious things happen. Minnesota lets its draft opportunity expire, lets a couple of other teams make their picks, then Minnesota picks somebody the experts say Minnesota would have taken at that turn anyway. Other teams making trades to swap the order of their draft picks, presumably with the expectation that the players they want will be available irrespective of order. Why all this foolery? One commentator observed that, under the draft system, lower-numbered picks are more valuable, and under the salary cap, less feasible. Presumably the reason the players have agents is to negotiate for a more favorable division of the gains from trade, and presumably those agents can seize upon those pick-swaps as evidence of the value of those players to those teams, fifth pick or twelfth pick in a round notwithstanding.