One of the concepts we hear and read about during draft season is “building through the draft”; how important it is, how it’s the key to success in the NFL, how dynasties are built off it, blah, bah, blah. But is ‘building through the draft’ still a relevant concept today, or is it more or less a relic from pre-free agency days? And what’s the alternative to building through the draft, “building through free agency”?
Teams that invest heavily in free agency don’t always see a good return on their investment (Albert Haynesworth says ”Hi”), but that doesn’t mean that “building through free agency” is necessarily wrong - especially if your team’s drafts have not produced the hoped-for results.