Redskins Offseason thoughts.

This was supposed to be a post about whether it would be wise to trade up to get RG3, but since that already happened, and I still want to use some of the material I had and make this a post about the Redskins off-season moves.

1. The RG3 Trade

This is a bad trade until it becomes a good trade. 

During the season, I was staunchly against trading up for Luck or any of the top QB prospects, but after the Superbowl, I reluctantly became a "By Any Means Necessary" guy to get our QB.

The "econ major" part of me is against trading up. It thinks that the draft is kind of backwards. Bad teams should never trade up to get a player because they are bad because they have multiple holes; they should trade down in order to acquire more players and build depth. Good teams should always be trying to trade up because they can make the claim that they are 1 player away from winning a championship. Also, you should diversify in order to decrease risk, you should trade down and acquire many low round picks, that way if a player doesn't work out due to injury or lack of talent, it's not a big deal.Tom Brady was a 6th round pick, Kurt Warner went undrafted, look for one of those, not a first round stud. We should get a mediocre QB, surround him with good talent, and he will perform just as good as a stud QB. Donovan McNabb was a so-called franchise QB, that ended well...

The "football fan" part of me knows that QB is the most important position on the field. If you have a team has a franchise QB, they are never letting them see free agency. The last 20 Superbowl winning teams, 18 of them either have QBs in the Hall of Fame (3-Aikman, 2-Elway, S. Young) or debatable Hall of Fame (3-Brady, 2-Eli Manning, 2-Rothlisberger, Peyton Manning, Brees, Favre, Rodgers, Warner). You can get good value at other positions later in the draft or through free agency, but if a team falls in love with a QB, they will never see free agency, unless there's something physically wrong with them. Mark Sanchez who was drafted to be a franchise QB, just got an extension, even though its arguable that he has lived up to the hype.

In the end, the "econ major" and the "football fan" in me looks at the Eli Manning draft day trade between the Giants and the Chargers. In getting Rivers, Merriman and Kaeding, you could say talent-wise the Chargers won the trade. In getting Eli, who has won 2 Superbowls and MVPs for the Giants, you could say they won the trade. I'm in this to win Superbowls, not assemble really talented teams that sit at home in February. For all we know, Les Snead, the GM of the Rams, is really bad at evaluating talent. Maybe he blows the 4 high draft picks he acquired from the Redskins, and we look really smart drafting RG3. In the end, nobody's going to care what we gave up if Robert Griffin III wins a Superbowl or 2 but if he's a bust, the future is fucked.

2. What Wide Receiver we should go after?

Fans have been talking about either going after Marques Colston, Vincent Jackson or Mario Manningham, the top 3 UFA Wide Receivers on the market. I choose option D, none of the above. I know, the Redskins have a ton of cap room and we need to surround the new QB with talent, but we have 4 wide receivers on our roster that are younger than 25, 5 if you count Brandon Banks. I want to see if they can play first before we fill that position with an expensive free agent, especially with the FA blunders the Redskins have had. What's the point of drafting players if we won't give them the opportunity to start?

3. Redskins have a ton of cap room, now what?

Hmmmmm. Seems like we've solved the QB spot with RG3, we have 2 young RBs, 4 young WRs, Davis and (maybe Cooley) at TE. I like our front 7 (Bowen, Cofield, Jenkins or Carriker up front and Kerrigan, Riley, hopefully a Fletcher and Orakpo). So I would go with improvements on the offensive line, defensive backfield and maybe a kicker to challenge Graham Gano in the preseason.

Trent Williams is good when not smoking weed, Montgomery just got resigned and Chester didn't have the benefit of a full off-season, so I'd target RT and LG, Jammal Brown battled injuries this season and Kory Lichtensteiger is recovering from a torn ACL and a free agent. LG Ben Grubbs played in a zone scheme in Baltimore and is only 28 so I like him. Not sure who I like at RT though, maybe we address that through the draft.

With LaRon Landry likely gone, I like DeJon Gomes and want to see what he can do with more playing time. He put up 30 tackles and 2 interceptions in 5 starts but I could understand bringing in a veteran to compete for playing time at SS. OJ Atogwe dealt with injuries last year, so I'm willing to give him a mulligan. DeAngelo Hall has made big plays but sometimes acts like a jackass, not sure if I want to cut him or sign Brandon Carr to be my top corner and move Josh Wilson to nickel.