MVN - Most Valuable Network

The 8-Year Plan, Revisited

I have a day off today, so Hog Heaven’s getting a bonus article.

Back on March 12, I wrote an article entitled “The 8-Year Rebuilding Plan“. I essentially argued that a team is justified to draft a replacement for any position where the incumbent has 8 or more accrued NFL seasons.  I did not suggest that the incumbent should be outright replaced, but that he should be competing to keep his job until its clear that the better player is the young guy.

DT Corneilus Griffin (8 years)
RT Jon Jansen (9 years)
RG Randy Thomas (9 years)
LB Marcus Washington (8 years)
LB London Fletcher (10 years)
CB Shawn Springs (11 years)
DE Phillip Daniels (12 years)
LG Pete Kendall (12 years)

Anyway, that was the 8 guy list of players who were already in line to lineup a replacement.

Anyway, I just bolded the players who don’t have a replacement already lineup up (Washington has HB Blades, Jansen has Stephon Heyer).  Those are six positions out of the starting 22 that need to be replaced.  Lets take a look at the post-draft revised list:

DT Corneilus Griffin (8 years)
RG Randy Thomas (9 years)
LB London Fletcher (10 years)
CB Shawn Springs (11 years)
DE Phillip Daniels (12 years)

Um, oops.

It may not be the popular opinion of the time, but the Redskins draft really went out of it’s way to avoid key needs.  Chad Rinehart was the lone pick that “replaced” someone on the 8+ year list, and that was perhaps the easiest need to fill, left guard.

In fairness to the Redskins, their draft did take a proactive approach to the issue of future seasons.  Here were the lists of players who would accrue their 8th seasons in the near future:

2009

CB Fred Smoot
WR Santana Moss
C Casey Rabach
DE Andre Carter

2010

WR Antwaan Randle El
RB Clinton Portis

2011

(none)

Now, after the draft, this actually looks a lot better.  Moss and Randle El both have replacements at a position that it normally takes time to develop talent add.  That’s a good thing.  Smoot and Rabach have potential, if unlikely, replacements on the roster in Justin Tryon and Andrew Crummney.  Sure, neither of those players can really be relied on right now, but they are there and a year from now, we could be talking about them as serious replacements.  Erasmus James could end up staying healthy, signing an extension, and taking over for Andre Carter in 2010 (at the earliest).  Heck, the guy is due salaries of 800,000 and 1,000,000 the next two seasons, and then absent a CBA extension, he becomes a RFA in 2010.

So there is hope with these future players, and we can at least take a wait and see approach.  Portis is going to be the starting running back here for at least the next three years, he doesn’t need to be replaced anytime soon, obviously.

Next offseason, the Redskins will have to address major issues on the defensive line, offensive line, linebacker, and cornerback.  If this is any evidence, the defense could be in trouble in the immediate, as the Redskins ignored it in the draft.  However, both my CBA analysis and roster analysis agree on one point:  That if the Redskins are in trouble as a team, it’s in the immediate — the future looks pretty bright.

How long has it been since we were able to say that?!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.