Roster Building, the CAP, and the draft..

Signing Martellus Bennett and Davon House was something of a novelty for Green Bay. Remarkably, I think they project as the only starters who have played for another NFL club. And House was originally drafted by the Packers. Almost all of the key backups are homegrown too.

Of course, a lot of their fans think the Packers rely too heavily on the draft.

many teams are playing draftees that are journeymen and really should be upgraded ASAP.

Acquiring better than average talent via the draft is a great way to improve a team, conversely destroy one.

New England's drafts have been not noteworthy for the most part. They must be scheming around the distinct talent their drafted players have to carry such a high %.

In comment 13441603 mrvax said:

Quote:

many teams are playing draftees that are journeymen and really should be upgraded ASAP. Acquiring better than average talent via the draft is a great way to improve a team, conversely destroy one. New England's drafts have been not noteworthy for the most part. They must be scheming around the distinct talent their drafted players have to carry such a high %. Another factor here is that they often trade down and make a number of picks in rounds 2-5, so even if their hit rate is no better they have a lot more chances

It seems to me that their recent player acquisition methods have been pretty diverse: trades (Cooks, Ealy, Allen, Rowe, Van Noy, etc.); restricted free agency (Hogan, Gillislee); unrestricted free agency (McClellin, Gilmore, Burkhead), and of course guys off the street like Dion Lewis). I'm not sure New England stands out in this regard any more.

1. Eli should probably be removed from the analysis since the QB position is nearly impossible to fill via FA (at least with a good starter) and because he skews the numbers upwards.

2. The horrid 2012 draft class also has a disproportionate impact on this analysis since they would all be on 2nd contracts. Even if 1-2 of those players were still on the team (and starters) the cost of drafted players would be higher and the cost of FA starters lower (since they'd replace one or more).

#2 gets to the real advantage of drafting. You get good, ascending talent with 4-5 years of cost control. After that initial contract, it typically doesn't matter if the player is "homegrown" or a FA as players rarely take hometown discounts. The best example of this over the past decade is probably Russel Wilson since he plays QB, by far the most expensive position, and wasn't a first round pick. They were getting QB play that typically costs $15-20M per season for <$1M per year and were thus able to use the additional resources elsewhere.

It's also why Beckham is arguably the most valuable WR in the NFL (at least for another year). Elite production + huge cost "savings" relative to the other top WRs (Brown, Julio, etc). Makes it a lot easier for the Giants to spend top $$ elsewhere.

one of the most important management functions is to draft intelligently, with attention to both player potential and team needs. Pick players in the draft with skills at premium, expensive positions, QB, Corner, DE, or look for generational talents when the window opens up. Then, costs will be lower, and more management discretion available to fill in team needs. Management must coordinate with coaching to allow needs to be matched with available talent. With a 3.5 year average time in the NFL, it is clear that some gaps will be filled with rotating journeymen, or rapidly developing draftees. NE, to this point, does this best. The Giants have improved since their coaching change.

And I agree that you should probably remove Eli from the math, because his inclusion actually makes the numbers contradict your overall point.

Separate question - why all caps for "CAP"? It's not an acronym. It literally is a cap on spending. I've seen other posters capitalize it similarly, so I'm curious if there's a reason behind it.