gowazzu02":2ndsj75k said:
I said the exact same thing in the "lets be honest we're trading down" thread.
These sell the farm trades never work out. Look at Atlanta who gave up a kings ransom to ironically Cleveland when they traded up for Julio Jones. Today they have one of the best WR's in the game, but their roster has no depth and has gaping holes all over the place. In the NFL you just cannot give up that much draft capital and be successful.
That's not entirely true. Most teams don't draft well late. And Baltimore is a rather stark example of a team that generally keeps a very shallow draftable pool on their board. They do very well at that.
Seattle is a team that likes day 3. With only one first round pick on the roster -- we're definitely an outlier in the league.
Atlanta has holes because they don't draft particularly well or develop talent. That has nothing to do with the draft. But in how the team is operated. And if you look at who was taken with those picks (again Cleveland is a bad drafting team so the result is skewed) -- then the trade was a huge win for Atlanta.
Ultimately the results of these trades comes down to how teams pick and develop the players taken. And that's not linear by any stretch. Seattle is one of the best at turning athletes into players.
Teams can be bad at that and as long as they recognize it -- it's in their interests to move up and get fewer better talent players. But you can also be a good team and still succeed by getting better early picks and not bothering with quantity of late round talent.
There are plenty of teams that make their clubs having almost no contributions from day 3 prospects. Instead opting to bestow journeyman contracts to established UFAs to 'fill' the roster and using boosted early picks to provide star power. The key is to do what you do well and stick with it.