Draft,Develop, and Resign

I am not a big believer in free agency as a means to build a franchise. After you get through the franchise tags the available free agents are average at best. I would not pay much money for any of these players this offseason with the exception of Assante Samuel. I firmly believe that the way you build a strong team is to draft well and resign that home-grown talent a year before they hit the open market. This way you have an abundance of players on their rookie contracts and you're never battling the cap and throwing good money after bad just to get under the cap. My recipe for building a franchise this way insures your team is young and competive and you'll have the cap space to accesorize with free agency without becoming dependent on free agency. What I have seen the Redskins do is become so obsessed with being a major player in free agency that they overpay for average talent like Antwan Randel-El, Adam Archuletta, and Brandon Lloyd. In Lloyd's case the Skins also found a way to committ double jeapardy by surrendering the money and the draft picks.

When you look at the team who won the Superbowl it's evident the Giants have a comittment to the draft. Osi Umenyori and Michael Stahan were both 2nd round picks. Justin Tuck and Jay Alford were both 3rd round picks. David Diehl and Kevin Boss were 5th round picks and Chris Snee was a 2nd round pick. The Giants did accesorize with Plaxico Burress and Antonio Pierce but they aquired them for no draft compensation. This my friends is how to build a team. Teams that think the draft is just a " crapshoot" are usually teams with poor drafting records. The good teams draft, develop, and resign. It is that simple