Why the low draft grades?

I am not comfortable with the quality vs. quantity argument.

First, you need more than four draft picks every year to have enough players on the team who are legitimate starters in the NFL. You can find in rounds three and four tight ends, running backs, defensive tackle, linebackers, safeties. We have seen in recent years the limits of relying so heavily year after year on undrafted free agents.

Second, the number of players a team has playing under their rookie contract, the better a team's position should be relative to managing the salary cap.

Third, there is risk in every draft selection. Not every first-round draft pick becomes a star or even a quality starting player. Given the time he has missed because of injuries and the price we paid to draft him, I would argue that selecting Davenport was a questionable selection. And then we have Cesar Ruiz, who has been a disappointment, and Payton Turner, who is a question mark. In short, drafting is really hard; no team hits all the time on even very high draft picks; and to get quality, it helps within reason to have quantity or as many at-bats as a team can get. No, I would have rather have a high first-round pick than 20 seventh-round picks. But I might prefer picks 16 and 40 to pick 12. It obviously depends on the draft. But in many drafts, the grade difference between player 20 and 35 on a team's board might be very small, and half the teams in the league might have the player at 35 ranked as highly as the player ranked at 20.