Are we really that far off from the top….

SuperSaint said

Six straight years of terrible drafts and questionable personnel moves.

If they can fix that, and age-out of these veteran contracts, they can be competitive in 2 years.

Don't see it happening next season, we have no money to spend in FA, and the same people who let Hendrickson and Baun leave because they didn't have the vision to utilize them properly are still running the show.

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Neither this team when it was good, nor any other good team really, was built on free agency. Free agency is there to fill holes created by bad drafting, to find a guy that you think puts you over the top from contender to Champion, or to poach guys that are backups on other teams on good deals because you think they can be stars for you. Cap space is there to sign the good players you drafted to second contracts or to occasionally get that one player that you think pushes you from contender to champion.

The first step for this team is to draft more guys that are worth giving 2nd contracts to and just generally building through the draft. And we need to add better coaching and talent evaluation to that so we don't let guys like Hendrickson and Baun go because of bad talent evaluation and/or not developing them into starters here.

I do think that we have an average roster that with good coaching and health could be a playoff team in the terrible NFC South at around 9-7. But, I think some of that talent is aging so we need to start drafting better now or that average roster won't last more than a year or two. Still we have a solid based to build on but we need to start building on that base with elite talent from the draft.