The key to roster management these days to is to have lots of quality players on the bottom of your roster that you aren’t paying tons of money for. Every draft pick, be it a third-round pick that is used on a wide receiver or a seventh-round pick that is used on a linebacker, should become an important piece of a teams roster puzzle.
Trading away draft picks for “name” players and missing on your scouting evaluations of college talent are the two quickest ways to decimate your roster for years to come. The teams handing out ridiculous contracts during the opening days of free agency are almost always the ones who have screwed up in the draft and who are now desperate to paper over the cracks.