Does the draft matter anymore? Part I

Do amatuer drafts really matter any more in the Big Four of U.S. sports? Or is it more a matter of how you play free agency and balance out your salary cap (baseball being the one exception, because unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL it doesn't have a cap per se).

Taking a look at some of the most successful teams in each sport can shed some light on this question.

Football first because it recently completed its growing springtime extravaganza.

The model franchises over the past 15 years in the NFL (roughly the length of time its salary cap has existed) have been the Cowboys, the 49ers, the Packers, the Broncos, the Steelers, the Patriots and the Colts.

During Dallas ascent in the early 90s, when it won three Super Bowls in four seasons, it featured a wealth of its own draft choices in staring roles: QB Troy Aikman, RB Emmitt Smith, WR Michael Irvin, S Darren Woodson, G Larry Allen. Among its top players, DE Charles Haley, TE Jay Novacek and CB Deion Sanders were imports from other teams either via free agency or Jimmy Johnson's astute trades.

Yes, San Francisco brought in Sanders and QB Steve Young, but the vast majority of its key players, Haley, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Rickey Watters, Roger Craig, Bill Romanowski and Ronnie Lott were 49ers draft choices.

The Packers traded for Brett Favre, signed Reggie White and acquired key players such as Eugene Robinson, Andre Rison, Sean Jones, Gilbert Brown and Keith Jackson to put them over the top for consecutive Super Bowl appearances a decade ago. However, Favre had no NFL career to speak of before coming to Green Bay, and the backbone of the Packers' teams came from players such as Gs Aaron Taylor and Adam Timmerman, TE Mark Chmura, RBs Edgar Bennett and Dorsey Levens, WR Robert Brooks, LB George Koonce, CB Doug Evans and S LeRoy Butler.

The Patriots? Many of their key players also arrived during the draft: QB Tom Brady, DE Richard Seymour, LB Teddy Bruschi, K Adam Vinitieri to name four. But New England also has made wise choices in free agency, signing players such as LB Mike Vrabel and Rodney Harrison and obtaining RB Corey Dillon when few teams would take a risk on him.

Pittsburgh made one big acquisition during the past 15 years - and it was a great one - RB Jerome Bettis. An argument could be made for LB Kevin Greene, too, though he also had extended stays in Los Angeles and Carolina. Aside from "the Bus", the Steelers were entirely homegrown, and probably more well known for whom the LOST in free agency rather than whom they drafted to refill those slots year after year.

The vast majority of the foundation of the Colts also came through the draft, witness QB Peyton Manning, WRs Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne, S Bob Sanders, DE Dwight Freeney, RBs Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai (and Edgerrin James before them).

And the Broncos, while more aggressive in free agency than any of the other teams mentioned (WR Rod Smith was let go by Dallas, WR Ed McCaffrey, LB Romanowski. And CB Champ Bailey was acquired in a trade), a bulk of their team also was home-grown. That includes: QB John Elway, RB Terrell Davis, TE Shannon Sharpe, S Steve Atwater, DL Trevor Pryce.

So the lesson from the NFL is the draft absolutely matters. Being smart in free agency can either fill in gaps for a contender (Dallas, New England and Denver for example) or put a near-contender (Green Bay) over the top. It could be argued that White is truly one of the only impact free agents ever signed.

Rams fans, don't fret. I haven't forgotten QB Kurt Warner, but he was a free agent for reasons different that White, though his story was no less compelling. A case could be made to include the Rams in this category, but two things happened for them that might happen once in a lifetime: the out-of-nowhere emergence of Warner (Brady doesn't count because he'd played at Michigan, not Northern Iowa, and had not been cut as many times as Warner had) and the acquisition of a sure-fire Hall of Fame running back in Marshall Faulk just a few seasons into his career (just as remarkable to me is that the Colts were able to recover from such a deal).