How do you build an NFL team capable of making it to the Super Bowl? Ask 10 of your friends, and you might get 10 different answers. Ask 10 NFL general managers, and their responses might vary just as significantly.
While there might be a few commonalities here and there, there's no one-size-fits-all solution to building a roster. There are plenty of cliches about how teams need a great defense, a great quarterback, a dominant offensive line or loads of experience to make it to a title game, but it takes only a few seconds to think about clear counter-examples to each of those potential rules or paths forward.
The 2025 Seattle Seahawks, of course, did something that a lot of people (myself included) didn't think was possible: win a Super Bowl with Sam Darnold as their quarterback. Darnold was excellent during different stretches of the season and played one of his best games as a pro in the critical NFC title game victory over the Rams, but even the well-traveled QB admitted he didn't play very well in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks fielded a great defense all season, and when Darnold did struggle, Devon Witherspoon & Co. made up for their quarterback.
The New England Patriots, who came up just short in the Super Bowl, might be an even bigger outlier of a roster build. One year removed from being one of the worst teams in the league, the Pats accelerated their development through a massive free agent spending spree. And at the same time, they benefited from the same second-year leap at quarterback that we've seen drive success for teams such as the Kansas City Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes, the Baltimore Ravens with Lamar Jackson and the Philadelphia Eagles with Carson Wentz, with the latter winning the title even after their franchise quarterback was injured.
Let's take a big-picture look at how NFL teams build Super Bowl winners. The calculus of NFL roster building evolved in 2011, when the league and its players landed on a new collective bargaining agreement that locked rookie salaries in place and established clear timelines to free agency. Teams have gotten younger as a result, with general managers leaning in to the cost control afforded by draft talent. The average snap-weighted age for NFL teams in 2010 on a given play was 27.7 years old. In 2024, that figure had fallen by more than a half-year to 27.1 years old.
Since that 2011 season, we've witnessed 30 teams compete for 15 Lombardi Trophies. While that's not a huge sample, it gives us a starting point to evaluate what they've done and how to win a conference title in the modern NFL. Can teams get away from the draft? Do they need to stuff the roster with first-round picks? Let's go position by position to answer some of those questions today.