Here is what you need to know on this Thursday, March 14, 42 days before the NFL draft.
Can’t find starters late in draft
The Redskins are looking to fill holes at safety, cornerback and, pending what Fred Davis ends up doing, tight end with very limited cap space. Some have suggested that the team may want to fill the positions in the draft.
Sounds great, getting cheap talent to step right into the lineup. Only problem is, it’s a pipe dream.
The simple fact is that once you get out of the first round and the early part of the second it is very unusual to find players who can come in and start immediately. I wrote a long “mythbuster” post about it a few weeks ago but since the subject keeps coming up let’s revisit it.
The Redskins have their first pick in the second round. In the 2012 draft, 12 of the 32 players picked started 10 games or more for their teams as rookies. If you go back into the latter stages of the second (the Redskins have the 21st pick of the round) it gets even harder to find a starter. Just three of the last 15 players picked in the second round last year were 10-game starters.
Finding an immediate starter in round three, as you might suspect, is even more difficult. Just three players picked in the third last year were starters as rookies. In all, from the middle of the second round on, which is where all seven of the Redskins’ picks fall, just 15 of the 206 players picked started 10 or more games. That comes to 7.2 percent.
As any NFL coach or personnel man will tell you, the draft isn’t about the coming season, it’s about two or three seasons down the road so that doesn’t mean that the other 93 percent of the players picked later in the draft were busts. Some were useful role players as rookies and many could blossom into starters later in their careers.
But the Redskins can’t—and won’t—go through this offseason thinking that they will be able to pluck a few 2013 starters at particular positions in the draft. That would be foolish at best and a disaster at worst.
Tandler talks free agency on Redskins Nation
In case you missed it
- Zo is headed to ‘Zona
- Hall’s departure leaves a hole
- Meriweather takes one for the team
- Stability has come to Redskins Park
- Playing the waiting game
Days until: NFL draft 42; OTA’s 62; NFL Kickoff Sunday 178
Tandler on Twitter
The #Redskins can create a lot of cap & sign FA's with small '13 cap numbers. Just a matter of how much cap they want to push to '14-'17
— Rich Tandler (@Rich_TandlerCSN) March 13, 2013
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