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Associated Press

Everyone in NFL-watching circles agrees: The draft is the best way to build a franchise into a contender. In fact, it's the only way.

With today's salary-cap restrictions and emphasis on young players, getting cheap talent that can contribute immediately trumps having experienced players who know the system. General managers who can get scouts looking for what their coaches want—and identify and acquire such players with good use of pick value—are going to consistently put winners on the field.

Over the three days of the 2015 NFL draft, the NFL collectively did a better-than-usual job of drafting sensibly, balancing need and value, without a lot of trades (and no blockbusters).

As much as we'd like to give NFL teams credit for drafting smarter, not harder, part of this newfound prudence was inspired by this draft class' flat and shallow talent pool.

Bleacher Report graded all 32 teams' front offices for how they executed their draft, with emphasis on fit, value and immediate impact in the first two rounds and fit and potential in later rounds. Decision-makers got higher marks for making aggressive moves or inspired choices.

A reminder: These are letter grades, and "C" is supposed to mean "average." A team with an unremarkable draft for straight need won't do much better than that. That's the beauty of the draft: Even the worst drafting team got better.