With the NFL draft quickly approaching us, many Packers fans are hunkering down in the sofas, copy of CheeseheadTV's 2016 Pro Football Draft Guide in hand as general Ted Thompson has always believed that the draft is the key to winning a Super Bowl.  It's hard to deny the success that the Packers have had under the watch of Ted Thompson; utilizing almost exclusively the draft while ignoring free agency, Thompson has guided the Packers to a Super Bowl win, an expected playoff berth pretty much every year and one of the most stable and efficient football front offices in the league.  However with all that success comes having to pay the man and the Packers have one of the most top heavy salary caps in the league; Aaron Rodgers is the highest paid player in the NFL, Clay Matthews was the highest paid linebacker at the time of his signing, Josh Sitton and TJ Lang both make top 10 money and Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb make one of the most expensive recieving duos in the league.  But with all that it never seems like the Packers can't afford to pay for the guys they like, just look at how the Ravens or Broncos were gutted after their Super Bowl winning seasons and it's surprising that the Packers haven't lost more to free agency.

One possible explanation to this is how much added value draft picks give a team.  Over The Cap has produced a value matrix based on comparing similarly talented players on veteran and rookie contracts and then seeing the difference in cost.  For instance, Eddie Lacy is slated to make $1.07 million in 2016 but will definitely command more next year as a potential free agent.  For the sake of argument, if Lacy makes $5 million per year on his first veterans contract then the difference in value (or the value saved by the Packers by drafting Lacy) is $4 million.  Quickly taking a look at the chart highlights a couple very important points:

1)All draft picks are better than their veteran counterparts: It doesn't matter if its the first pick in the draft of Mr. Irrelevant, all draft picks will net a team positive cap savings.  Obviously higher draft picks tend to have higher cap savings but hoarding late round picks (like Thompson loves to do) is still significant savings when taken together.  What I mean is that on average Ted Thompson will be saving at least a million dollars in cap space by drafting a player in the 5th, 6th and 7th rounds.  Save a million every season and in the long run your team will have one more solid starter than they would have if they had just traded those picks away.   

2)The first overall pick is not the most valuable: Back in the days of the old CBA, having the 1st overall pick was a curse disguised as a blessing since it meant dropping an ridiculous amount of money on an unproven college player.  The new CBA was supposed to correct for this with a slotted and standardized rookie contract but players picked first overall are still not worth their money.  As a point of comparison the first overall pick on average nets a savings of $1,196,061 while the 27th pick (which the Packers hold) has a average savings of $1,363,913.  For those interested, the worst pick appears to be 4th overall, likely each draft only produces 3 super star players and the 4th pick simply misses out.  But the biggest cap savings actually is in the top of the 2nd round, with the first pick of the 2nd round being worth $1.69 million (Over The Cap speculates that it might be because teams have a full night to reassess and pick their player in a more calm manner).  

3)Using picks to trade up is a really bad idea: So far the Rams and Eagles have both surrendered a fortune in order to move up to 1st and 2nd overall; both teams gave upwards of $10 million in cap savings in order to presumable select one of the top two quarterbacks in this year's draft.  To add insult to injury, because the Rams and Eagles now lack so many picks, they will have to supplement their roster with free agents, who will have higher salaries and thus exacerbate their problem.  Some people will argue that's simply the cost of doing business in order to get the super star quarterback but in reality it might be cheaper to just lose more games in the previous season.  

In conclusion, Over The Cap basically agrees with Ted Thompson that the draft is simply the best way to build an NFL roster, not only do you get players in their prime, but you also get them at a severely discounted rate.  The reason why the Packers have never lost a free agent they wanted and can afford to have Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews on the same roster is because of the draft.