Looking both at us and the league as a whole, I’ve grown to believe that ‘better at drafting’ just means ‘luckier at drafting’
But yes I hope we return to being lucky at drafting
Obviously there is some skill involved in drafting. First in evaluation to some extent and second in being able to predict where guys will be drafted so that you increase the value of your picks. I think first and second round picks are more about skill than luck, but after that luck pretty much so takes over.
And the best way to account for luck is to better your odds by having as many many picks as possible. Bill Belichick had a notoriously bad hit rate in the draft but he had so many picks that it put the odds in his favor so he ended up having a bunch of good players from the draft despite hitting on picks at a low rate.
So, I think in many ways the way to get good at drafting is to put a premium on getting more picks and not trading away picks to move up. But you do also need to be good at scouting for the early rounds and to cut the luck factor down some.