You'd be surprised how quickly a few good drafts can become costly. I'm not sure who has been better at restocking and staying continuously near the top than the Evil Empire, but it amazes me how quickly the lineups from their stacked teams get disassembled. BB has used his top choices almost exclusively on defense for the past 10 years or so, but he's had to turnover almost all of his 1st and 2d round draft choices after their rookie contracts. Drafting well with later picks and signing cheap free agents let's you spread the money around and bring in guys for reasonable pay who may not be elite but are good system fits.
You can do that when you have Brady/Ben/Eli, Rodgers, etc. on the offensive side. I wouldn't say Gronk, Blount and a decent offensive line are chopped liver either. Sometimes, teams are simply lucky (not NE particularly) and there is no plan for luck. NE had a pretty good "system" before BB (like Pittsburgh and Tomlin) arrived. It'll be interesting to see what happens especially when Brady (for more than four games
) is gone. Though Cassell did a nice job. Will New England become BB's newest Cleveland?
OT The 'skins have to tag or pay Cousins (IMHO). He's a decent QB in a mediocre world of QBs. There aren't many good QBs around. Check around the league and see how many teams got rid of a QB so they could "upgrade". Mindfact, most of the time it hasn't worked out. It's gone from mediocre to mediocre at best. I believe he still has a lot of upside left but in the end .... it's about the money.
