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What Football Outsiders had to say about the Skins draft.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:51 pm
by jazzskins
Here is the link to the article. But, its a long one so I've clipped out the good sections for you.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2008/0 ... bles/6271/

Below are the quotes.

The Redskins select Malcolm Kelly, then the Jaguars select Quentin Groves.

Sean McCormick: Interesting to see teams loading up at certain positions. Washington is flooding their receiving corp and now the Jaguars have taken two consecutive edge rushers, and in both cases the teams got terrific value with their second selections.


Sean McCormick: Several teams had what look to be very strong drafts.

Washington and Jacksonville took different routes but had the same rough idea; the Redskins traded down and flooded their receiving corp with fresh blood, while the Jaguars traded up twice to flood their defense with edge rushers.


Bill Barnwell: In the FO Mock Draft, I picked Malcolm Kelly for the Redskins in the first round. Kelly ended up going to them in the second round. I can’t emphasize how highly I think of this move. Kelly’s the perfect fit for what that offense needed, a possession receiver who runs smart routes and has reliable hands. He’s a great foil for Moss and allows Randle El to return to the slot. This will probably come back to haunt me, but I think Kelly ends up being a Rookie of the Year candidate. It’s just such a good fit. I don’t know if I can say the same about Devin Thomas, since Thomas’ route-running isn’t up to Kelly’s caliber. Either way, Jason Campbell should have plenty of options this year.


Sean McCormick: I think the receivers came off the way they did for a pretty simple reason: The guys who were thought of as the top group weren’t fast enough. The two guys who came off the board first — Keller (who was drafted for his receiving chops) and Avery — placed 1-2 in the short shuttle at the combine. I think the fear is that the bigger receivers didn’t have the necessary quickness to get in and out of their breaks or to get cleanly off the line.

Mike Tanier: Without one or two guaranteed guys, it makes sense that the wide receivers would be hard to predict. Take the top 2 or 3 prospects away from any position and there’s a lot of guesswork. It all came down to system and specific need when each team picked. The Bills needed size. The Eagles needed quickness/return ability. The Redskins needed bodies. While I usually hate their draft strategy (let’s take Saturday off), I like the idea of getting two pretty good prospects from this class and letting them compete.

Stuart Fraser:It is interesting to compare how the Bengals look now and how they might look had they accepted Washington’s offer for Chad Johnson. The Bengals took Keith Rivers and Jerome Simpson, the latter of which I would regard as a reach if I had any confidence that draftnik groupthink had evaluated this year’s wide receiver class halfway competently. This leaves them with a big hole along the defensive line and a smaller one at safety (and still some questions in their multiple-receiver packages). If they’d accepted the Redskins’ approach for Chad Johnson, who I’m becoming more and more convinced will not return at anything like his previous form if he returns at all, they could have grabbed someone like Kentwan Balmer or Phillip Merling with that pick (they could have traded down again and still grabbed one of them, actually).

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud. And embroil them in a ridiculous dispute with a praise-motivated wide receiver represented by Drew Rosenhaus.

Doug Farrar: I never understood why the Redskins were so hot on making the Johnson deal in the first place. But yeah, the Bengals get the booby prize. If you’re offered up to two first-round picks for a 30-year-old disgruntled wide receiver that is spending his entire off-season bemoaning his presence on your team, the only potential drawback is that you might injure yourself getting to the phone quickly enough to agree to the deal. So the Redskins kept their picks and had a very solid first day. Jim Zorn’s offense doesn’t require a Hall of Fame receiver; it needs three receivers who are consistently good. Zorn sees Randle El as his new Bobby Engram and Santana Moss as his Deion Branch. He needed a big receiver who would require a defense’s focus, and he got two of them in Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly. The Chiefs and Dolphins were Saturday’s big winners, but the Redskins were the ultimate beneficiaries of the fact that sometimes, the draft doesn’t go the way you want it to, and you wind up thanking random deities that it didn’t.


And that last comment is the most intelligent thing that Ive seen written about the Skin's draft!

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:11 pm
by RayNAustin
Personally, I like the Redskins draft, and I was not in favor of paying the price offered for Chad Johnson who I think is a self absorbed, locker room disaster.

The only better outcome would have been for the Redskins to have made a deal for Roy Williams, and then use their #2 pick on Limas Sweed. That would have been a home run.