The pool for the football draft is so vast and there's so many specialized positions to fill. It might be a brute force thing as well, teams sign 10-20 undrafted free agents and maybe a couple stick.
The article makes a good point that there's an argument to be made about getting to choose your team. Getting drafted onto a particular team as a late round pick might cause you to get stuck behind some entrenched starters.
Although I also kinda wonder how many guys might have gotten starts due to incompetence of the front office / injury attrition rather than out of merit. I'm reminded of the 2012 Chargers, they had signed Jared Gaither to be their new starting left tackle and didn't draft a tackle that season. Gaither was hurt and suddenly the Chargers had to use an undrafted signee (and perhaps not coincidentally the Chargers offense wasn't great that year).
Meanwhile the later round picks from that draft class were just depth players at other positions. 4th round pick Ladarius Green was stuck behind a still productive Antonio Gates plus veteran Randy McMichael. 5th round pick was guard Johnnie Troutman who didn't see playing time until 2013. 7th round pick David Molk was behind Pro Bowl caliber center Nick Hardwick. The other 7th rounder was running back Edwin Baker who was cut after training camp but would have been behind Ryan Mathews and Ronnie Brown.
sports.yahoo.com
