FLASHBACK: January 1, 2005

[oafusp]

24 hours until the 2005 NFL Draft begins and I've got a question....

Was the victory of the Minnasota Vikings in the final week of the season worth it?

Some people like to say "win at all costs", thats what teams play for...to win.

Some also say it's better to end a losing season on a positive note than a negative.

Others will say, play your backups to evaluate them and don't win the game in order to secure a better draft pick.

The fact is, that the Skins DID get to play A LOT of their backups for more than half the season due to injury. This was plenty of time for depth evaluation.
As far as ending the season on a "postive note", well, the Redskins really needed that after having a dissapointing season in Joe Gibbs' first season back.

BUT, that one victory on January 1st gave the Redskins a 6-10 record instead of a 5-11 record. Had they lost, they would have got a top 5 pick in the draft.

If they had a top 5 pick they would not have had to mortgage the future once again by trading their 1st round pick in 2006 (along with the 3rd in 2005 and 4th in 2006) just to POSSIBLY move up to a spot they would have ALREADY had if they had lost to the Vikings on January 1st, 2005.

Was the victory in the last week of a losing season worth it?
Had they lost none of this draft pick purging would be necesary IMO!

How important mentally is a victory when the results play a HUGE factor in where you draft and how a teams future (trading away picks) plays out?

[skins81]

"You play to win the game" - Herm Edwards

[Gibbs' Hog]

I understand where you're coming from, and many of my friends and I considered that fact before the game was played.

And I agree that it is not necessarily the best thing to end a mediocre season on a "high" note when you could get a better draft position.

But I don't think any coach (and myself included) would ever want to lose a game for the sole purpose of getting a better draft choice. Even if we had a chance to get pick #1 if we had lost that game, I still would have wanted to win. I always want to win; and I think the organization does too.

Besides, who knows if the top 8 picks will work out any better than the 9th anyway? So much happens leading up to draft day, and the skins might have traded a #5 pick this year anyway if we had lost to Minnesota.

I'm glad we won that game. Maybe it's pride, or maybe it's principle - either way, I would NEVER throw in the towel just to move up in next year's draft.

Just my

Good question, though.

[oafusp]

Yeah, I don't think I could throw a game either.

But, I am sure there was a beady eyed Suit in Snyder's office saying, "sir, there are 7 other teams with the same record as us, my calculations indicate that we could have a top 5 pick in the draft if we lose"

"Or, we can beat the Vikings and trade 5 picks and a player for that spot we would have had anyway"

....Snyder nods and claps and stomps his feet

"Yeah, thats what I thought....lets trade away our draft picks AGAIN!!!

[Gibbs' Hog]

Has any team ever not had any choices for an entire draft?

Perhaps the skins are making an attempt to set the record one of these years!

[BringThePain!]

Actually... if we had lost.... we would have picked exactly at #5... which if you go by the Draft Value Chart is only a difference of 350 pts... the jump from 5 to the 2 or 3 spot would be somewhere into an extra 500 to 900 points.... and since we don't have a 2nd round pick this year....we would have to had given up our first next year anyways.....

The Giants were at #4 last year when they basically traded their first pick this year for the #1 pick... (I know that's not how it actually went down... but basically that's how it went down)

So what I'm trying to say is... that last game really didn't matter in the case of positioning to move up for a guy like Edwards.... we would have had to have lost 2 extra games.... and then we would have been the 2nd pick overall....

But I still say, you play the games to win... I enjoy every win... even if it's for nothing but pride...

[Jake]

Was the victory of the Minnasota Vikings in the final week of the season worth it?

Yes! My friends are Vikings fans and will never hear the end of it from me. I don't go to Redskins games to want them to lose. Never.

Your insinuation that we should throw away games to move up a few spots in the draft is ludacris.

[Redskins1974]

Not that I ever played sports on any level close to the NFL but growing up playing sports, I played to win. Any athlete or coach that doesn't should hang up their cleats or headsets. There is no scenerio that justify's throwing games, IMO.

[gregory smith]

Nothing good ever came from a loss-Joe Gibbs

[REDEEMEDSKIN]

Not every fan is a draftoholic, so they don't go into Fedex thinking "maybe we should lose this game to be better next year". No, the game was not worth throwing. It was great watching Randy get shutdown, Daunte running for his life, and the 12th man rising to the ocassion.

On a personal note, I arrived late to the game that day. I believe it was in the third quarter. All the scoring for the day had happened, and I had to put up with riding METRO, hoping that I wouldn't be too late to watch any of the action.

Long story short, if I had gone through that just to see our team dog it in the last game, I'd have been really upset. I'm happy with our positions in the draft, and I am excited at the thought of building upon what was established by last year's team.