how valuable is a first round pick

Pretty valuable if it's one of the first 5 picks.

Not too valuable otherwise. At least, that's my opinion.

You can go to the more established leagues and see some draft history, especially the more recent drafts, and see what kind of players are going in the first round. I recently updated the balance bar in the trade generation screen to more closely reflect the quality of players that are selected at the chosen draft pick(s). Note that if you're thinking of the A-B-C-D-F scale of 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, etc, you are expecting the player values to be too high; here a "C" player should be in the 50's and should be representative of the 7th round. Most teams should have at least a few players in the 50's active if not starting, and your stars will be in the 70's and above.

Here's MFN-1 from 3 years ago. Also one of my best drafts;)
The player ratings have developed some.and should give a good indication of what a first rounder could be.

Player Pos Height Weight Selection Draft Team Current Team Cur Fut
#58 Anthony Lehman
DT 6' 3" 300 1-1 BAL BAL
89

92
#81 Son Kemp
TE 6' 4" 257 1-2 STL STL
93

100
#96 Don Glisson
MLB 6' 2" 245 1-3 KCY KCY
92

96
#9 Edmund Hudson
QB 6' 1" 220 1-4 NED NED
72

75
#54 Jake Eck
LT 6' 4" 308 1-5 NOS NOS
76

76
#12 Kenneth Coleman
QB 6' 2" 220 1-6 JAX JAX
68

68
#47 Robert Lerma
SS 6' 1" 207 1-7 ATL ATL
79

79
#6 Jarrod Clark
QB 6' 1" 220 1-8 DEN DEN
65

68
#60 Joshua Steadham
RT 6' 3" 319 1-9 BUF BUF
86

91
#71 Douglas Burgoyne
C 6' 3" 275 1-10 MIN MIN
67

68
#1 Nelson Keister
QB 6' 2" 220 1-11 WAS WAS
65

66
#14 William Wilson
WR 5' 11" 199 1-12 TEN TEN
81

88
#85 Leon Foster
WR 5' 11" 199 1-13 ARZ ARZ
74

74
#33 Gary Cruz
RB 5' 11" 214 1-14 SDO SDO
89

94
#55 Alfred Malley
MLB 6' 3" 245 1-15 CAR CAR
70

71
#72 Richard Bias
DT 6' 3" 300 1-16 GBY GBY
89

96
#36 Robert Roberts
RB 5' 11" 217 1-17 SFO SFO
87

91
#11 Charles Paul
QB 6' 1" 220 1-18 CIN SDO
66

71
#25 Raymond Young
RB 5' 11" 217 1-19 PHI PHI
67

68
#19 Anthony Smith
WR 6' 1" 196 1-20 IND IND
66

66
#58 Rob Clayton
MLB 6' 2" 245 1-21 DAL DAL
86

93
#57 Shawn Darnell
WLB 5' 11" 231 1-22 CHI CAR
64

65
#8 Gene Day
QB 6' 3" 220 1-23 MIA NJY
69

76
#97 Edward Peck
DT 6' 3" 300 1-24 SDO SDO
85

93
#98 William Franks
WLB 6' 0" 237 1-25 TBY TBY
60

61
#13 Arnold Bailey
WR 6' 1" 204 1-26 OAK OAK
78

82
#14 Tory White
QB 6' 2" 220 1-27 JAX GBY
54

55
#71 Alexander Wang
LT 6' 4" 312 1-28 PIT PIT
74

76
#30 Frank Cain
FS 6' 1" 206 1-29 SEA SEA
76

79
#37 Randy Pichardo
SS 6' 0" 213 1-30 HOU CAR
72

76
#59 Joe Prince
RT 6' 3" 319 1-31 NYK NYK
57

58
#98 Clyde Helman
SLB 6' 2" 241 1-32 NJY WAS
61

61

Thanks!