2. Robert Griffin III
RG3 is up second and he’ll be choosing between the Browns, Redskins, Dolphins, and Seahawks. Okay, they probably won’t actually let Griffin pick his helmet, but the more you hear him in interviews you get the feeling he just might be able to talk Goodell into it. Even if the commissioner holds strong against the mighty persuasion of RG3, this was still a pretty unique situation where Griffin was penciled into the #2 slot and all the mock drafters were speculating on who would trade up to grab him.
It’s similar to 1998 in the (go figure) Peyton Manning / Ryan Leaf draft where Arizona was sitting at 2, but they already had a young QB they liked in Jake Plummer (not a terrible comparison to Sam Bradford maybe?). San Diego wound up sliding up from three to two to take Leaf. Who would pull the trigger this year and how high of a price would they pay? Despite being a more interesting debate, discussion on which bold bidder would win out this time around was overshadowed by Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis funeral and subsequent free-agency. Unfortunately, before the RG3 story had a chance to rebound and really simmer into a dicey auction, the news broke that Washington had struck a deal for the pick. With teams dueling each other over the next few weeks while weighing the value of taking RG3 vs. the value of their franchise’s resources over the next two to three years, it would have been fun to watch. If St. Louis could have strung it out to mid April, the thing would have been a powder keg. Who knows how high the price would have gone?
So if you’re the Rams, why pull the trigger now? The key was to keep enough bidders in the game for as long as possible. With free agency on the horizon, the main risk was the potential for the list of buyers to thin out. If Cleveland and Miami filled their QB voids with Matt Flynn and Peyton Manning, the value of the Rams’ pick would have dropped. The Redskins shrewdly stepped up to the plate and closed the deal. Rather than gamble, St. Louis decided to play it safe with what was already on the table.
The final price ended up at Washington’s first and second round picks along with their firsts in both 2013 and 2014. The move puts St. Louis in the favorable position of being able to trickle high-end prospects onto their roster over the next three drafts. It is a fair price, but the interesting debate becomes whether it would have been better to take half the value to trade away Bradford and keep the number 2 pick. My head tells me to keep Bradford. The current model in the NFL is to build your team around a quarterback that is more ship captain than rocket man. It’s the whole Michael Vick debate all over again. Do you want a guy with a steady hand capable of navigating your franchise to its final destination or do you want a guy that’s strapped to the front of a rocket that could take you to Mars if you’re lucky? The rocket man thing has never worked. The rocket always fizzles out or crashes into the Atlantic leaving the respective franchise stranded. But what if Griffin is a new prototype? He’s like the rocket man in a shiny new spacesuit who just might be able to harness all that energy to go somewhere that no one’s ever been before. I’d go as far as to call him Michael Vick 2.0. It’s as if someone said, "Alright Vick is a little too short, and he doesn’t have great character. Let’s re-make him taller.. and oh yeah, we’ll make him a good guy with a magnetic personality." I’ve bounced back and forth on this one to tell you the truth. Both Bradford and Griffin have injury concerns. Bradford could still be pretty good. Griffin could be great. It’s not like the Rams are all that deep into the Bradford era. Starting over wouldn’t be that big of a setback. It all boils down to what compensation they could have commanded in a Bradford trade. If it were me and someone offered a 2, a 3, and next year's 1 to go with being able to keep the number 2 pick to draft Griffin, I’d have a hard time walking away. Regardless, it’s a moot point.
The pick: Washington Redskins
Manning the Rockies?
I was only modestly interested in Manning’s free agency until Denver emerged as the favorite and it got interesting. Who woulda thunk it: Tebowmania, one of the most exciting sports stories of last year, scuttled by Peyton Manning...potentially. If Manning inks with the Broncos, the story immediately shifts to Tebow: will he stay or will he go? When the news of Denver’s pursuit of Manning broke, the battle lines that had faded since the end of the season precipitated out of thin air into another boisterous argument. Followers of the book of Tim quickly came out against any courtship of Manning while the nonbelievers applauded, “great move, sign Manning and ship Tebow to Jacksonville.” In this case, both parties are wrong.
It’s funny because the root of the massive canyon separating the two sides of the debate all last fall was the exact opposite. Back then, the back and forth raged on and on because both sides were right. "Tebow is a Winner." It was the popular, lazy way of touting Tebow’s leadership skills. As painful as it was (kind of like the pain of listening to Sarah Palin back John McCain by calling him a maverick seven times per debate response) there’s no denying the guy has something special. He was terrible at his job over and over again, yet he kept pulling success out of nowhere. Did he catch some breaks? Absolutely, but it wasn’t all luck. There’s no question he made his teammates better. He brought Willis McGahee back from the dead. Before last year, Matt Prater was an inconsistent kicker with a big leg. Tebow took over and the guy turned into a cold-blooded assassin that could kick a football through the moon.
The other side clamored, “Tebow can’t play quarterback. Look at the numbers. He’s never going to be Tom Brady.” Numbers don’t always tell the whole story, but it’s hard to dispute the bulk of Tebow’s play could be characterized as ineffective at best. To think that someone could transform his skill set in the matter of a few years to an elite level is hard to imagine (more on that in a second).
Now, here we are again and the two sides have polarized around:
Option 1: How dare you take the keys to the car away from Timmy Rah Rah??
AND
Option 2: Huzzahh for Manning to Denver. Ship Tebow out of town. Ship him off to Siberia if you can.
C’mon, not only can Denver keep Tebow, they should keep Tebow...but only if they can lure Manning to town. There’s no denying Tebow isn’t ready right now. If they run him back out there next year, he’s done. People are going to expect him to improve more than humanly possible. They’re going to have to run the same gimmicky offense. He’s going to get dinged up, and Tebowmania will never quite gain steam again. That’s where Manning comes in. He’s the one guy with enough clout to come in and replace Tebow without causing a revolution, and it buys Tebow one to three years to prepare without the scrutiny of having his inevitable growing pains broadcast as failure on national television. The key thing here is, Tebow doesn’t need to be Tom Brady. He has something no one else has. Brady is an elite leader; maybe one of the greatest of all time. He couldn’t lead Tim Tebow’s underwear. If Tebow is able to develop average to slightly above average quarterback skills (think Jason Campbell/ Kyle Orton not Brady/Brees) he’s going to turn the Broncos into a contender because his charisma is so far off the charts. TEBOW NEEDS TIME.
On the flip side, all you hear is how much Tebow and Manning wouldn’t be able to coexist. “What if Manning has a bad game and all the Tebow fans jump on his back?” I don’t think Peyton Manning gives a crap. Say he throws three picks against the Chiefs. He’ll shrug, "Yep, I had a bad game. Cute billboard...I’m gonna go torch the Raiders." There’s nothing quite like a jilted superstar. I think he’s going to be on a mission and he’s going to plow through everything in his path. I am even kind of hoping he starts showing a little more edge to his personality. It would almost be refreshing in a Hulk Hogan turns heel after 20 years of being the good guy kind of way. I’m not worried about fans affecting Manning.
The point has also been made that Tebow has to go in the wake of a Manning signing because Tebow wouldn’t make a very good backup quarterback to the kind of offense that Manning will be running. Are they kidding? I think he is the perfect backup for any offense. If a starting QB goes down, there are very few teams that are going to be able to plug in the backup and not see a drop off. When it happens, the team is just catching lightning in a bottle from an unproven guy a-la Tom Brady’s ascension. The backup’s job is to keep the season afloat for a two to four game emergency stretch if something bad happens. In that sense, running QB’s are the best backups. Teams that have prepared for Manning will have trouble adjusting to a 240 lb QB running it down their throats. Why try to emulate Manning as your backup. Throw Tebow in there. He’ll get everybody excited. He’ll win a game or two. Heck, he might even make the playoffs and upset the Steelers. What more do you want?
The Manning carrousel is still spinning. Who knows where it will stop? Denver and Tennessee are the favorites right now and San Francisco just might sneak in as a dark horse. Here’s to hoping for Denver as the landing spot. If nothing else it would feed a few more blog posts. Happy free agency everyone. Trades are going down. Players are signing. College pro-day workouts are coming up. I will get back to my mock draft one of these days. I promise.
