For all of May, we at Inside the League have tracked the comings and goings in NFL front offices. It’s big-time stuff to scouts and front office employees, as well as agents and other members of the football community, but why should fans (like this guy) care?

My feeling has always been that if you know who does best in talent management — both in drafting but also in free agency, as well as player development (i.e., turning raw players into established pros) — then you can pretty much tell the future, at least with regard to who’s gonna be a playoff team consistently. Of course, this begs the question, who does the best in talent and roster management?

I think, when it comes to how well a team drafts, here are five criteria worth considering.

Did the team draft and develop its own QB? I think you have to give Buffalo, Baltimore, Green Bay, Philadelphia, San Francisco and others like them a lot of credit for not having to go through free agency to find the most important position on the field. There are two reasons: you get a cost-controlled QB for five years, and you get system stability, which is a critically important (and highly understated) factor.

Does the team keep its first-rounder for the fifth year at least 80 percent of the time? This isn’t a failsafe, because sometimes a player barely gets the extra season (or gets it by default), but it’s still a good metric, especially when you see how many former first-rounders don’t get renewed.

Are the starters on the offensive and defensive lines team-drafted? It all starts up front, so if a team can build out its offensive and defensive lines — especially at the edges (DE/OT) — that’s good work and clearly gives that team an edge (no pun intended).

Does the team’s draftees hang around the league? Not every player a team drafts will make the roster — especially if the team consistently drafts at a position of strength — but is he good enough, consistently, to make another team’s roster? That’s a great indicator, I think. 

Does the team make the playoffs at least 70 percent of the time? Granted, this might be a high standard, but it’s all about making the playoffs, right? If you’re not succeeding at this basic measure, you need to make changes. If you don’t get to the tournament, you can’t win the title. 

Are there other measures of a team’s ability to draft? Of course there are. But I believe if you analyzed NFL teams and gave each one a point for each one of these items annually over the last five years, I bet you’d find that the leaders were universally considered the best teams on draft day. 

I ran this by several friends in scouting, got a general thumbs-up from them. What am I missing? Let me know on Twitter or DM me.