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Stan Kroenke and Les Snead did it and won the Super Bowl in 2021

The Rams did catch lightning in a bottle as they say. Jones tried in Dallas as well.

They had a very solid infrastructure of players onboard that they drafted (Aaron Donald, Cooper Kupp). They then used a mixture of FA and trading picks for players already under contract (which isn't FA) to take a good team over the top into a champion. It was an interesting approach that blended all the different ways you can acquire players and Snead executed it perfectly. A good GM explores every option.

KAM has made a mixture of good and bad moves in his tenure here, but he appears to be learning from the mistakes and gaining steam as he goes along.

You kind of made my point. 1). Most of the players on this list became FA before the cap existed or shortly thereafter when it wasn’t as big an issue. 2). Most of your list with a few exceptions were all great players but well past their primes and on the decline. 3). And a few struck gold after the fact (Gannon, Brees).
Only players on this list that became a FA in there prime and in somewhat a modern era after playing well was Curtis Martin and Simeon Rice and he was coming off injury and his worst year as a pro while wanting top dollar.

So if you look at your list the only franchise cornerstones to come out of your list in their prime in the Sal Cap era are Brees, Martin and Rice. And only Martin and Rice had posted possible franchise type numbers and only Martin came without ?’s.

I’m not saying adding FA can’t be effective. But you don’t build your team thru FA. While the draft IS roulette… it’s still the best and most likely place to land real difference makers you can build around for a long time. And no, I don’t agree you get value for your money unless you’re playing in tier 2,3 and 4 of FA which is not where the best players exist. Do you really think EZRA is worth the contract he signed??? Do you really think Cousins at 35/36 is worth 100 M guaranteed coming off a torn Achilles on his plant foot?? Desperate teams always overpay!!

And to be clear… I am in no way stating the draft is all that! It’s very low odds, but I think you have to strike a balance. All I’ve ever indicated is unless you want to overpay or bring on older players for short stints to see if they have anything left in the tank you’re likely not going to really improve your talent very often. More often than not it’s grass is greener syndrome. Ezra was. Turd here but he’s someone else’s savior. And their turd will be our savior. Because 90% of FA are average to maybe just slightly above average at best unless you’re breaking the bank. And that’s still no guarantee…..see Davenport! The good thing about FA is you at least usually have an idea that the person can function at the NFL level…which is more than you can say about the draft.

I think 50% is a generous guess. Especially when compared to a free agent who is a real live NFL player.

Phillips was nothing special when he was signed and he is basically a high effort journeyman for us now. Actually 1st and 2nd round IDL is one of the safest picks you can make. 

Compare Phillips to your average day 2 draft pick and the return is good to great.  Also, I also think it's disingenuous to use the last year of his contract to frame his contract... he signed a 3 year contract averaging 6.5 million per year instead of the inflated last year you are referencing.

Paying a proven guy like Phillips less than 3% of the cap is a better bet than hoping a player like Derrick Nnadi.

Lastly, Phillips is not a "journeyman"; he played out his 4 year rookie contract, he chose the next team he wanted to play for and is going on his 3rd year with them.