In Part I, we took a look at the Redskins’ standing in NFL labor markets that included Quarterbacks, Runningbacks, and Receivers, while making conclusions about what the Redskins might have to “settle” for, in the process of trying to improve the team.

Today’s analysis is all about them future hogs. All assumptions will be made on the uncapped year premise.

NFL Offensive Tackles Market

Setting the Market: Here’s the NFL world we live in: the Redskins and about half of the other teams in the NFL badly need an offensive tackle. It’s beyond a highly competitive market. Any college football player who has the footwork to play the position is virtually certain to have a job. Tackles who enter with some sort of credibility are virtually certain to be overdrafted.

This is happening because the dominance of defensive line play over offensive lines is, right now, at historically high levels. However, the market for the interior offensive lineman hasn’t quite adjusted to this effect just yet. Offensive tackles are in prime demand because NFL pass protection schemes are isolating them on defensive ends one on one.

And the free agent market has basically no contribution to offer, with (ages based on 2010) only Chad Clifton of Green Bay (age 34) and Mike Gandy of Arizona (age 31) offering any sort of experience whatsoever at the LT position. Wayne Hunter, a backup lineman for the Jets (age 29) offers you a potential right tackle, but after that, you reach the level of the Jon Jansen’s and Tony Pashos’ of the world: the type of player that Vinny Cerrato already deemed too limited to play tackle for the Redskins–not to make this a Cerrato article.

These players will have starting jobs in 2010, but it will be in the role of a one-year stopgap for a team that needed to postpone it’s fulfillment of it’s tackle requirement until the 2011 draft. Even still, the NFL is looking at an unprecedented amount of rookies to start in week one of the 2010: as many as ten. To put that in context, five offensive tackles from this draft have started at least three games for their team, with players like William Beatty, Sebastian Vollmer, and T.J. Lang combining for five starts at tackle between them. That’s eight players, and this is a historically strong contribution from the rookie class. I’m talking about ten full-time rookie starters at the tackle position next year, with the standard contributions from even more rookies on the interior.

So how is the draft class shaping up?

It doesn’t appear to be a whole lot different from prior years, and probably can’t support the shortage of acceptable quality NFL tackles. That means, come the NFL draft, demand for tackles have never been higher. As competitive as the quarterback market is shaping up, it’s not like there’s a quarterback shortage in the NFL.

One of the reasons I believe that this team may need to use a top ten pick on an offensive tackle is that they simply might not have position in the second round to get a starting type tackle. It appears we’ve reached the point when even career right tackles can hold the “franchise” label, and justify a mid to late first round pick. If the Redskins want to do anything about their piss poor offensive line, they’ll need to attack it early to get in on a piece of the college pie.

NFL Guards Market

Right now, it appears that the hyper competitive markets on lineman will center around the tackles, but it’s not like the Redskins are quite settled at the Guard position.

The difference here is that the free agent market will offer some names at Guard who will help some NFL teams. Denver’s Ben Hamilton, New England’s Stephen Neal, Houston’s Chester Pitts, Carolina’s Kendrick Vincent, and Cleveland’s Rex Hadnot are all free agents, and Hamilton is one of the top free agents on the market, with Pitts not far behind. Both will probably cash in big during the uncapped year.

The NFL guard market in particular will be incredibly uncompetitive past those two big names. For one thing, even without a great senior guard class in the NFL draft, the class is more than sufficient enough to cover for the limited need of NFL teams. One of the reasons the guard market hasn’t adjusted yet, is because teams are very slow to attribute offensive struggles to the guards.

The Redskins signed Derrick Dockery to replace Pete Kendall this offseason, which gives them a left guard which they can work with, and they’ll have the rest of this season to pick out a right guard of the future. Even if they do find a long-term future at RG, the team should consider drafting a long-term Dockery replacement. His contract runs through 2013, but I’m not sure how much longer I can watch him play like this. It would be prudent to take advantage of the ridiculously discounted market price and find a late round replacement.

NFL Centers Market

The Redskins are the primary contributors to a barren market of centers because Casey Rabach’s contract expires at the end of the year. Rabach has been the start of many a bad game on the offensive line, but he’s really the only center who would be good enough to get signed by another team if the Redskins let him walk, compared to anyone else on the market.

The solution could be as simple as re-signing Rabach, but since very few teams have an issue at center, any true offensive rebuilding project would likely go in a different direction.

Problem is, this senior college class goes about two deep with NFL prospects at the center position. The class below it, however, has between 4 and 5 prospects who could go in the top three or four rounds if they declare. If this becomes a much stronger class, it could benefit the teams that wait until the fourth or fifth round to address the position.

Otherwise, your talking about the last game-ready center going in the third round, where the Redskins do not pick.

Part III to come next week.