Trading away the world for Robert Griffin III. Fans of RGIII will consider this blasphemy. When healthy,he is indeed among the most brilliant young quarterbacks in the game (though he has a great deal of competition in that category right now). But just because a player is spectacular does not mean he is worth any price. And Griffin, famously,had a price to the Washington NFL team far higher than his $4.8 million effective pay this year (salary plus pro-rated signing bonus) would imply.
Griffin was taken second in the 2012 NFL draft,but the team had only the No. 6 pick. To get the higher pick in the draft,they traded away their 2012 first- and second-round picks and their 2013 and 2014 first-round picks.
That was foolish. Since the 2011 revamped deal between the NFL and the players' union,every draft pick is a license to get a young,promising player,at below what his market rate would be if there were a simple auction for talent. The Washington team traded away its ability to replenish its ranks of younger players for three years in exchange for one (albeit,extraordinarily talented) player.
Yes,quarterback is the most important position on the field. Yes,a great one can change a team's fortunes. But great teams win championships not by finding one great player and wildly overpaying him (in this case,in the form of draft picks rather than cash).
In the 2000s,10men have been Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks. Only two of them,Peyton and Eli Manning, were first overall picks in the draft. The other eight winners range from the No. 6 player drafted overall (Trent Dilfer),to late first round picks like Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers (two of the best quarterbacks of the last few years) to late,late selections Tom Brady (199th overall),Brad Johnson (227th) or Kurt Warner (not drafted at all). Last year's Super Bowl pitted a No. 18 selected quarterback (Joe Flacco) over No. 36 (Colin Kaepernick).
In other words,the teams that have had the ultimate success in the NFL have done so not by expensive trades to snag the shiniest object they see, but by finding value wherever it falls and putting together the best overall team.
And if one team was going to trade away a ton of valuable picks to get one splashy quarterback, Washington could afford it least of all. And that's because of management's second major error of recent years.
