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max
Most of the top teams invest in the OL with top picks. Look at all the playoff teams and tell me what percent of them haven't invested high picks in their OL.
So yeah, you can always find a team that doesn't do it with high picks, but as Damon Runyon once said:
"The race may not always be to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet."
the main point here is that while it is possible to win without investing top picks on the OL, it's not the safest way. When guys have top tier talent it can cover for errors due to lack of cohesiveness or mental mistakes. And I would argue there isn't one guy on the OL who is a top tier talent with Whit being so old now. I am willing to bet that there isn't an OL who will sniff the pro bowl on this OL.
It used to be that high OL picks were safe ones. Not anymore.
It's not just that it;s "possible" to win with an OL that is not built out of high picks--it is actually fairly common.
People have misperceptions about this because they don't look at line-building throughout the league. They just assume having lots of high picks must be better.
Okay the 2017 Eagles for example. They have one 1st round pick, Lane Johnson, who although he is very good, is a right tackle, and it's easier to find a solid ROT than any other OL position. In their superbowl year their LOT was a free agent signing (who was originally a UDFA), but he got injured, and was replaced by a 5th rounder (Vaitai). One guard was a 2nd rounder originally, but came to the Eagles as a reclamation project and a cheap, budget FA. Their other guard was a 3rd rounder and their center was a 6th rounder. New England of course is another example. Their 2018 superbowl OL consisted of a UDFA, a 7th rounder, a 5th rounder, a 4th rounder, and a 3rd rounder.
There are lines that used high picks to be good (Dallas) but that's just quite simply not the only way to do it.
This is my claim on this.
The way you reduce risk is not by depending on high picks, it's by having a top OL coach.,,,
