IMAGINE Dale Morris, Tim Kelly and Dane Rampe in the Navy Blue.
All were 22 or older when their AFL shot came – Morris and Rampe as rookies, and Kelly in last year's national draft – putting them in the sweet spot for Paul Roos' remedy for clubs' ongoing struggles.
The discussion comes as three clubs with significant finals droughts – Carlton (five years), Brisbane (nine) and St Kilda (seven) – occupy the bottom spots on the ladder with one win between them through four rounds.
The AFL elevated the Blues into the 2013 finals when Essendon was ruled ineligible as part of its penalty from the supplements saga, but Carlton last qualified on its own in 2011.
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Roos, the 2005 Sydney premiership coach, would like to see priority picks banished to the history books and replaced with a model that puts the onus back on clubs to fix their own problems.
Former Gold Coast, Western Bulldogs and Swans coach Rodney Eade is another who dislikes priority picks, arguing they "reward mediocrity".
Roos, who also coached Melbourne through its latest rebuild before handing the reins to Simon Goodwin, wants the league's battlers instead given access to a supplementary list.
The catch?
The three footballers per club in Roos' vision must be aged between 22 and 25 years and able to provide immediate help for a side bereft of senior talent and too reliant on inexperienced youth.
"All of a sudden, they help you in the short term and you might turn out with an All Australian defender (Rampe) and a Brownlow medallist (Matthew Priddis, who was drafted at 21)," Roos told AFL.com.au.
"They're the kids that can make a difference to your footy club immediately and they're the kids that are getting lost in the system.
"You're picking them from the VFL, SANFL, WAFL and the NEAFL, and you could unearth some absolute superstars who would never have got an opportunity to play AFL football."
Roos' idea comes with the AFL awarding only one club – Brisbane, two years ago – a priority pick since rules were overhauled in 2012.
The latest incarnation of the priority pick rule is cloaked in secrecy and down to AFL bosses' discretion, whereas the past two versions had win tallies across one or two seasons attached to the conditions.
Eade is wary about there not being any "transparency" anymore about the new process and warns there could be a backlash if they came back into vogue.
"I reckon clubs have got to get their decisions right," Eade told AFL.com.au.
"If they're ever going to give a priority pick again it should be a really extreme situation, and it should be a lot tougher than in the past, which I think it's going to be.
"I wouldn't reward teams that are doing it completely poorly, but (there should be consideration for) teams who've had a plan and things haven't worked for whatever reason."
Melbourne and St Kilda had drafts, under the old rule, where it had the top two draft selections, in 2009 (Tom Scully and Jack Trengove) and 2000 (Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke), respectively.
The first three choices – Luke Hodge (Hawthorn), Luke Ball (St Kilda) and Chris Judd (West Coast) – in the 2001 'superdraft' were all priority picks.
The same was true in 2003, 2004 and 2005, whereas the Lions scored a selection after the first round in 2016, which happened on occasion in the previous priority pick regulations.
The AFL's then-football operations boss Adrian Anderson explained the latest rule change at the time.
"We did a mathematical analysis, and looked at studies done on the NFL draft," Anderson said.
"It showed that getting pick one and two at the start of the draft is something in the order of six times more powerful than getting pick one only.
"The priority pick system was in the end over-compensating teams for poor performances."
The AFL's new stance soon came into action.
League bosses denied the dreadful Demons of 2013 – after a 2-20 season with a percentage of 54, having not played finals since 2006, and with 34 wins across seven campaigns – a priority pick.
They did so again a year later.
A poor record was no longer the sole trigger of the "exceptional circumstances" the AFL considered when handing out a priority pick.
The same club and key individuals were heavily fined and suspended earlier in 2013 after an AFL investigation into alleged tanking four seasons earlier.
Roos was only weeks into his major challenge as Melbourne coach when club officials learned another priority pick would not be coming their way.
"I say this because I know – if Melbourne didn't get a priority pick after their period, then no-one deserves one," Roos said.
"I think they've slammed the door shut. Now people will say they didn't get one because of the tanking. Well, OK, but that's a completely different argument."
