Washington Redskins: Another stellar draft desperately needed

The Washington Redskins are in need of another stellar NFL Draft class after their 2018 group continued to solidify the future.

The Washington Redskins have come under fire recently due primarily to their late-season collapse.

While critics hammer away at the front office, the coach, the owner, and the players, they gloss over the fact that the team lost its starting offense and most of its backups.

While the disappearing act performed by the defense can’t be explained, pretending that losing your running backs, your wide receivers, your tight ends, your quarterbacks, and your offensive line didn’t factor into the team’s final record is kind of unfair.

Chase Rollier was the only starter on the Redskins’ offense that played all 16 games. And yes, Adrian Peterson filled in admirably for Derrius Guice, but with regards to most of the other injuries, when they went down they were gone for the season.

I’m not a gigantic Jay Gruden fan but he definitely deserves another shot. No one could have overcome the devastation his team experienced on the offensive side of the ball. One more shot is not unreasonable. If he can’t take Washington to the playoffs in 2019 he’s gone.

Injuries or not, in 2019 it’s playoffs or bust for Gruden.

If he, or anyone else, thinks Dan Snyder will give him another chance if he fails in the upcoming season they are more delusional than I am.

Having said that, there are some changes that need to be made to address this whole injury fiasco.

Specifically, Shawn Lauvao, Chris Thompson, Vernon Davis, and Jordan Reed need to be shown their walking papers. Lauvao, Thompson, and Reed have proven over and over again they can’t go 16 games.

It’s unfortunate because I think all three are great players.

I’m a huge fan of Vernon Davis as well, but keeping a 35 year old tight end is just inviting more injuries. There are always exceptions, and Adrian Peterson comes to mind, but Davis does not.

Injuries are part of the game. It’s brutal out there. That’s why most of us watch it on TV and haven’t played since high school or college. These guys take beatings that make us cringe. Point taken. But, when a player demonstrates that year after year he can not play 16 games without missing half of them or ending up on IR every year, it’s time to move on.

For that reason, if Gruden, Allen, and Snyder don’t use their first round pick to take one of the two offensive guards that they can immediately plug and play to fix that gaping hole at the left guard spot it would appear that they may in fact be as clueless as most would suggest.

I will remain optimistic until a name other than Cody Ford or Dalton Risner is called in April. Yes, there are going be good guards available in round two, but that doesn’t matter. Chris Lindstrom, Kaleb McGary, or Darryl Williams can’t come in and immediately blow open holes for Guice and Peterson.

And if that problem isn’t fixed immediately there is no chance at all for a winning record much less a trip to the playoffs.

I’ve seen a few mock drafts that have the Redskins taking a wide receiver with their first pick. Great, but who’s going to throw it to them?

Like it or not, Colt McCoy is the odds-on favorite to be the starting QB in 2019. Even if the Redskins can somehow find a way to upgrade the QB position, without protection it won’t matter.

Even if they brought in Patrick Mahomes, the only way the Redskins win more than a few games next year is to run the ball. McCoy, or whoever, might be able to complete a pass now and then but if Washington can’t line up with a massive offensive line full of bad intentions and pound the ball down the field they don’t have a prayer.

I really hope Dwayne Haskins and Drew Lock are off the board by the time the Redskins pick, and I think they will be, because I think Washington’s war room would be tempted to pull the trigger on either one of them. Remember Jay, you’ve got one year.

Want to use the pick on the other side of the ball? Take one of the stud edge rushers? Note to self: you can’t win an NFL game by scoring zero points.

The defense tanked last year. It won’t happen again. Re-sign Preston Smith. He makes everyone on the defense better and he’s never missed a game because of injury. While he only had four sacks last year he led the team in QB pressures and sets the edge like few others in the game. His lack of big stats might mean the Redskins get him at a more affordable price.

I don’t think there is any question that had Smith had a few more sacks, no one would dare suggest we let him go because it would be cost prohibitive.

While we’re at it, why in the world let Josh Norman walk? We paid him $20 million plus last year and the year before. The only reason teams structure contracts like that is so that after overpaying for a couple years you get the guy on the cheap. Granted, $11.5 million isn’t cheap but for Josh Norman it’s a steal.

It’s the only way that contract was ever going to make any sense.

Now, as we are about to reap the benefits of the contract, we show him the door? Not smart.

I’m guilty of being a Redskins fan that holds out hope, often irrationally, until the ship is resting firmly on the ocean floor. I have friends, all of us Skins fans since the 60’s, that jump ship at the sight of the first rogue wave.

At the end of the year, and sometimes by October, they get to say, “Told you.” I prefer to believe that if the team keeps its defense intact, they will be just fine.

I also think Washington’s two best receivers, Cam Sims and Robert Davis, never made it to the regular season last year. I also think that Derrius Guice is going to blow people’s minds with his talent.

Furthermore, I hold out hope that given an offense that doesn’t lose 10 of its starters over the course of the year Jay Gruden could score some points.

And finally, pointing to the last two drafts, I think there are some smart people in the front office. But if the broken left guard position is not their number one priority, I too may begin frantically looking for a life raft.