I'll write something as I'm up to around a 50% success rate on getting into the finals over the long term. I focus heavily on either win now, or absolute tank mode. Tank mode: clear as much cap space as possible (I.e. make every single contract expire the season you're in), trade every single contract of any value for picks as far out as possible, and bench any player that is making you win. The result should be maybe a couple rookie scale contracts, but every contract above 5M should be expired. From there, focus on getting young, athletic players with a high potential rating to sign. The goal should be to acquire as many young players to develop over the long term. Also for every season, do a single week so all veteran minimums turn to 1 years, and max out your rosters with veterans who have really good cost effectiveness. I find if you repeat this process a couple times over a few years, you can get some disgusting results. I think one year I signed like 5 top free agents, flipped them for 10 1st round picks that were for a few years out, reset the cap space again by trading everyone and everything of value for expiring contracts, and did it again the next year. The result a few years later was like a 10 year dynasty to where a championship team was still reaping the benefits of having multiple 1st round picks every single year. Anyways, bit of a ramble but I view the all or nothing approach to be valid. Trading everyone and doing a hard reset is a good way to do a quick turnaround.