NFL Draft Success = Super Bowl Championships? Cowboys, Yes; Rams, No
FRISCO - In Super Bowl XXX, 16 of the Cowboys' 22 starters were drafted by Dallas. The likes of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Darren Woodson and MVP Larry Brown were supplemented by a few non-drafted acquisitions, namely Charles Haley, Deion Sanders and Jay Novacek.
The NFL has changed drastically in the 26 years since the Cowboys beat the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Dallas no longer even sniffs Super Bowls. And the teams that do are much less reliant upon the draft.
The 1995 Cowboys' roster was made up of 61 percent "drafted" players and 39 percent acquired via trade/free agency. The 2022 Cowboys still have their foundation of drafted players such as Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, CeeDee Lamb, DeMarcus Lawrence and Trevon Diggs, but the new NFL landscape suggests they'll need to add multiple productive players from unconventional streams to return to glory.
The NFL Draft just isn't as crucial as it once was. First and foremost, it's shorter. Brown was selected by the Cowboys in the 12th round (320th overall) in 1991. In today's seven-round format, the XXX MVP would be left out as undrafted free agent.
Conventional wisdom suggests teams must win the draft in order to win the Super Bowl. But is this really the case?
Yes, say the 2016 New England Patriots, whose Super Bowl LI-champion roster was comprised by 55 percent of players they drafted.
No, say the Los Angeles Rams, who have not had a first-round draft pick since 2016 yet have played in two Super Bowls the last four years.
Certainly it's advantageous to build a team and acquire stars through the draft, as nine of the last 10 Super Bowl MVPs (the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Tom Brady is the only exception) won the award for the team that drafted them. But it's not draft-or-die, as only two of the last 10 Super Bowl champions (led by the LI Pats) have drafted at least 50 percent of their rosters.
Bill Belichick and the Patriots had some of the highest percentage of drafted players in their three championship squads, with many recurring through the three teams such as Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman. In fact, the "Patriot Way" led to three of the top four "drafted" Super Bowl rosters over the last decade.
But the Rams' victory in Super Bowl LVI last February punched holes in the importance of the draft. Mortgage the future to improve the present.
The Rams traded their most recent No. 1 pick - quarterback Jared Goff - and two future first-rounders before last season to acquire Matthew Stafford, and then cashed in picks (a second and a third) during the season to acquire pass-rusher Von Miller. Both obviously played huge roles in L.A. winning last year's title.
The cost? The Rams no longer own their two most recent No. 1 picks - Goff and running back Todd Gurley (2015) - and don't have a pick in this week's NFL Draft until No. 104 in the third round.
While Belichick will surely stick to his successful formula which has seen him use draft collateral to engineer more trades than any other team, clubs are paying attention to the Rams' blueprint. The Miami Dolphins traded away five future picks for Kansas City Chiefs' speedster Tyreek Hill, and a total of eight teams currently are without a first-round pick.
The website Pickswise examined the last 10 Super Bowl champions for the roster make-ups of drafted players vs. those acquired via trade/free agency. None of them come close to the Cowboys' 61%-39% ratio from a quarter-century ago:
Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
2016 New England Patriots 55%-45%
2012 Baltimore Ravens 53%-47%
2014 New England Patriots 47%-53%
2018 New England Patriots 46%-54%
2021 L.A. Rams 45%-55%
2017 Philadelphia Eagles 44%-56%
2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 42%-58%
2013 Seattle Seahawks 42%-58%
2015 Denver Broncos 41%-59%
2019 Kansas City Chiefs 32%-68%
