Just a word about our team maintenance situation. Please do not see any of this as a complaint. I LOVE what we've done.
And I know that the "all in" meme is overblown. But ... not completely.
1st day draft picks do have value. We cannot wish that away.
It is hard to find true excellence in later rounds. Kupp? Sure. But that is beyond rare. True stars require 1st day picks or better.
We have used picks to get proven stars. Cool. And we draft well in the lower rounds. We have a lot of youth. Again, cool.
But our stars are aging. That's the downside of getting a Stafford in Year 13. Von. Odell. Whit. Their shelf life is contracting. In Whit's case, it is gone.
We can build a solid team base with judicious later picks. But we can't COUNT on this. And the problem is that you need genuine stars. And they are hard to find.
And here's the thing. You can see 1st day picks as capital for getting more stars. But we have already spent them. Even as mere chits for other people's stars, they have value. And we have spent them already.
Then there is the whole matter of affordability. Drafted guys are cheaper. You can only buy proven top talent so long.
We are going to need to revitalize our top talent with younger people we can afford. To do that, we need picks.
We'll probably be OK this next year. Probably. But we do not have the assets to add many more vets this year. We just do not have the margin we had.
Our assets are depleted. Again, no complaint. But as fans we would do well to prepare ourselves for some diminishing returns going forward.
