One of the toughest things to do is give a team a grade right after they completed their draft. Nobody knows how good these players are actually going to be and none of them have played a down in the NFL so how could you possibly determine how good their draft was. The only way I can really evaluate a draft is by the value that you got with each pick. For example if you had the 60th pick in the draft and you selected what seemed to be the consensus 40th guy in the draft at that slot than you would be getting good value. Is there any guarantee that the 40th guy will be better than the 80th rated guy? No, but at this stage the experts think there is a higher percent chance that they will be successful and that is all you can really go off of so when grading the Redskins (or any teams’) draft. So as silly as it seems to grade a bunch of players before playing a down, most of these evaluations are based purely off of value.

In my evaluation of the Skins draft I am just going to give you a general consensus of it as a whole because I can’t pretend to know these players and how good they are (other than what I read on the internet). But anyways here is a list of all of the 2012 Redskin draft picks:

1. Robert Griffin QB Baylor

3. Josh LeRibeus OG SMU

4. Keenan Robinson OLB Texas

4. Kirk Cousins QB Michigan State

5. Adam Gettis OG Iowa

6. Alfred Morris RB Florida Atlantic

6.Tom Compton OT South Dakota

7. Richard Crawford CB SMU

7. Jordan Bernstine CB Iowa

So according to my calculations that is 2 QB’s, 1 RB, 2 OG’s, 1 OT, 2 CB’s, and 1 OLB. In terms of overall value I think we did alright, just reading the scouting reports and evaluations it seems to me like Adam Gettis was our biggest steal value wise so you can take that for what it is worth. Obviously when evaluating these picks it is good to get the best value possible early in the draft. For example if you get the 14th best player with the 25th pick that is better than getting the 140th best player with the 180th pick in my opinion because he is still the 180th best player so how much production will you really get? Either way though here are my thoughts on the Skins draft:

• Obviously RG3 will determine if this draft was a success or not. While I hope all of our other picks turn out to be stars, this whole draft revolves around RG3. If he ends up being the star we picked him to be then it will be a great draft and if he is a bust than so will this draft.
• Why did we draft Kirk Cousins? I have no idea why this pick was made. The only conceivable thing I could think of is for the sake of competition. But the Skins are obviously planning on having RG3 be the starter for the next ten years so why waste a 4th round pick on a guy you don’t plan on ever making a difference for you? I personally don’t think it will have a huge impact on RG3′s psyche or anything but it seemed really unnecessary.
• Drafting 3 O linemen is good. We drafted 3 offensive linemen in the middle rounds and my hope is that one of them develops into a good starter for us. I am not going to go as far to say the middle to later rounds of the draft are a complete crap shoot but I usually don’t think their chances of being solid NFL players are that great so the more you get the better the chance that one or two of them can produce for you at some point. Hopefully that happens for the Skins.
• Drafted 2 CB’s is also good. I would have probably rather drafted one safety but maybe the Skins think that they can turn one of these guys into a safety I am not sure. Much like the O linemen situation I am hoping that one of these guys can become a solid starter for us either at the CB or safety spot at some point but I won’t get my hopes up.
• Don’t really get drafting a OLB or RB but don’t hate it. I don’t think either of these are a position of need for us (especially OLB) but if these guys brought good value then I don’t have a big problem for it. Maybe Morris is an under the radar back that explodes in the NFL, who knows but I would have probably rather used at least one of these picks on a safety.
• Wasn’t really that excited for draft. As strange as it sounds I was probably least excited for this draft as any in the years past for the Skins. I was kind of baffled why so many Skins fans were so excited for it (not that it’s a bad thing), just because we already knew what was going to happen so there was really no suspense or excitement during the actual pick. Were they really that excited to hear RG3′s name being called and the Skins being in the spotlight for literally about 10 minutes of a 4 hour show? I guess, but it didn’t do it for me. Also knowing we had no 2nd round pick, I knew we had little ammunition to try to move up and get another 1st round pick so our day was over after the RG3 pick that was basically made 2 months ago. It was kind of cool hearing that RG3 would be drafted by the Redskins if only because it will be the iconic moment that we will see for the next 10-15 years whether he succeeds or busts.
• Overall I give this draft a B. This draft was really hard to evaluate/grade because we only had one pick in the top 60 and it was the 2nd pick and we took the 2nd highest rated guy. It doesn’t seem to me like we got any unbelievable steals or made any stupid reaches, but we did draft some positions of need. All in all though our draft was decided a couple of months ago when we made the RG3 trade in the first place and he will be the deciding factor in about 5-10 when we can really grade this draft.