In the NFL, there may be no more exciting day than the first day of the NFL Draft. That is the day that dreams are made and every team has hope. But how much does the draft influence the rosters of the best teams in the league?

If we look at the four teams that are still alive on the road to the [strike]Super Bowl [/strike]Game-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, we see that 49.5% of the 212 active players were acquired through the draft. Of the remaining players, 27.8% were never drafted, and 22.6% were drafted by other teams and acquired through trade or free agency.

And if we look at the rosters of the four remaining teams (below), we see some stark differences in how those teams were built.




The Steelers are the most home-grown team, with 57% of their players acquired through the draft. The Jets have the fewest active players that came via the draft (36%).

If we look at the scrap-heap players, we see that the Jets have the most players that were never drafted (36%) and the Bears have the fewest number of players that never heard their name called on draft day (17%).

BusinessInsider.com wrote: