The Rams - Redskins Draft Trade

It was announced last night that the Washington Redskins will trade three first round picks and a second round pick to the St. Louis Rams for the second overall pick in the 2012 draft. Presumably, the Redskins will be taking Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin the third (RGIII) with that selection. The Rams will receive the sixth overall pick in the 2012 draft class as well as the Redskins second round pick in this draft and their first round picks in 2013 and 2014. The deal is awaiting league approval, which won’t be granted until the league year begins on Tuesday, March 13^th.  

All-in-all, the Rams had to get this deal done and the Redskins were desperate enough to do it. Add in a little pressure on the Rams from Peyton Manning becoming a free agent and some pressure on the Redskins because the Browns ratcheted up their efforts to trade for the pick and you get a done deal.

The Rams definitely won in this deal, at least at this point. I’m going to say right now that there is no way to judge who won in this deal until about four years after the last draft pick involved (the 2014 first rounder) is selected. It takes about four years to judge the quality of a draft pick and trades like this need to take into account all of the draft picks and their level of success.

The Rams really wanted to get this deal done before free agency began. The pressure of potentially losing trade partners because of various free agent signings made the Rams need to rush this deal. But in rushing it, they didn’t lose anything. They were able to get three first rounders and another second rounder, which would allow them plenty of ammunition with which to try a re-load their roster. The only real problem is what they’re going to do with the sixth overall pick. All of the players the Rams were likely to target at that spot would seem likely to be gone by that pick. The Vikings are almost guaranteed to take Matt Kalil, as are the Buccaneers with Morris Claiborne. The only question is what the Browns are going to do at four. Should the Browns stand pat and take Justin Blackmon, the Rams would be stuck with no obvious player to take, except perhaps the second best tackle in the draft Reilly Reiff. Should the Browns trade down themselves, then everything depends on who is drafted with that pick. On the whole though, this was a wise move by the Rams

The Redskins had better hope that RGIII is the guy. Not just a good quarterback, but the most special quarterback the Redskins have had since Sammy Baugh. That’s the only quarterback in their history I can think of who would be worth what the Redskins gave up to move up to the second overall pick. If he’s not, the Rams are going to need to miss on a lot of picks to make up for it. They’ve leveraged a lot of their future on RGIII being special, they better hope he is.

The semi-untold story in all of this is the Browns. Reports are that the Browns ratcheted up their attempts to acquire the pick in the last few days before the Rams informed them that the pick had been traded to Washington. All information up until that point had pointed to the Browns having little to no interest in trading for the pick given the price the Rams had been asking for. There had even been report that the Browns were looking to trade down. The Browns pushing for the trade was what kicked the Redskins in the pants, resulting in the trade. While there are many who would say that the Browns dropped the ball in not going after RGIII, I’m not among them. I’ve been of the belief that the Browns needed to add weapons to their offense and give Colt McCoy another opportunity to be the starter. The simple fact is that RGIII or any other quarterback they pursue is not going to change the league-leading dropped passes the Browns had a year ago. The Browns need to put weapons in place o their quarterback, whether it be Colt McCoy or Matt Flynn or Branden Weeden or Ryan Tannehill, can be successful. In this draft, with the number of selection they have, it made the most sense for the Browns to do what they did and stand pat.

All-in-all, The Browns made a smart move by doing nothing, the Redskins banked their future on RGIII’s potential and the Rams acquired a boatload of picks to help build their team. It’s hard to say who won until we see how the actual picks work out, but needless to say, if RGIII is a flop, then the Rams will look like geniuses, so long as they don’t go on a string of picking busts.