This is an interesting conversation and one that gets much closer to the real problems that we have and why we are stuck in this endless loop of bad seasons. We are just very bad at player retention and who we pick up, in FA or draft.

Nearly every year we are picking top 5 which pretty much guarantees a high quality prospect. Ive always felt any 1st round pick up until around pick 27+ should be good enough to push for a starting position for any team. We have the BAP vs Need debate every offseason but as Bullseye pointed out earlier, we are weak in so many positions our needs are many. 

Ive complained for a few years that we let too many players walk after rookie deals as we view them as not good enough or not worth the cash but i also think we have done a bad job at developing that talent through poor coaching and endlessly changing coaches that stops us developing systems and fine tuning plays for individual players. Its painful seeing 'busts' for us go to other teams and have success and something we are seeing more and more.

We have had a number of talented players come here in recent years and then left through trades or contracts expiring and not replaced them with similar or better quality players which then means we have to spend future draft picks and cap trying to find better replacements. Its just a cycle of diminishing returns.

No team has 1st round picks at every position and every team needs to find those 4th round and later picks that they can develop into starter quality. No team is perfect at this but we seem to struggle and not be able to do this far worse than any other franchise and we need to figure out why or we will be stuck in this loop.

---