Hail Raiser I hear you, and ideally we could stockpile picks and build the team for when we have to pay Daniels about 20% of the cap. I get that.
However.
That's going to take too long because we have a situation RIGHT NOW where the window is wide open. If we were to accumulate picks and draft, you have to wait 2-3 years at the minimum to see the final fruits of that labor. We'd have a very young team and would, at least in my opinion, somewhat waste the next 2 years.
I'm not in favor of doing what the Rams did (thought it won them a SB) and basically not draft anybody of consequence for half a decade.
But I also think you have to treat draft picks as assets.
The other thing to keep in mind, the average tenure of a 5th round pick is something like 2 years. And it gets worse from there. So, in theory, the majority of the players picked in the 5th, 6th, and 7th rounds probably won't even be here by the time we have to pay Daniels.
And the hit rate of any draft pick is sketchy. And we hurt our re-build through the draft by making the NFCCG and picking 29th. (Which, I'll take 10 times out of 10.)
Yeah, the Eagles are set up because they've been a well run organization for 20+ years. We've been the pits of the world for 20+ years.
We need to draft players, develop them, hit on draft picks, and over time, it will be ok. But for now, if you can get a consensus top 5 LT, you do it. A 5th for Deebo? Yeah, that's fine. The Lattimore trade is the one where you have to wonder about because his play at the end of last year was inconsistent at best, and terrible at worst.
All this to say, we have 2 impact draft picks and a mid-round (4th) pick this year right now. We need to address the premier positions with those picks as best as possible. We're going to have to live with trading some mid to late round picks for older players, and we're going to have to live with picking older players in FA, because that's what's there to do.