FOX - Botched trade will put pressure on Redskins

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by redskins1974

Gtripp, im not on here looking to find common ground. I am looking to discuss different points of view.

ok - forget comparing O-lines, Defense, QB rating and team won / loss records.

so tell me the reason Denver turned down two #1 picks AND JC for Cutler? why did no team pickup JC for the skins 2nd round pick, when it was on the table? his lack of market value should tell you something - other nfl teams dont really want him. forget my personal opinion, but this was even discussed on the NFL network.

Well, of course other teams don't want him. He's not a whiny brat like Jay Cutler, nor is he an established talent.

If teams acted 100% rationally, there would have been no market for Jay Cutler. It would have been "okay, our project QB and a third round pick for your project QB". That would have been the market. Teams don't always act rationally. The Redskins being there 1) drove up the price, and 2) defined the player (Cutler) as a proven commodity, as opposed to a young, promising QB, which is what Cutler is.

Understand that the Redskins COULD have done something similar with Jason Campbell had that been their goal (to artifically inflate his value and then trade him to a team that really wants a franchise QB). It would never have gotten to the levels the Cutler sweepstakes got to, but it's all cognitive dissonace theory. We spend a month talking up Campbell, defending his statistics, placing the blame for his failures elsewhere, just generally acting like he's the greatest QB we've had since Theismann and all of a sudden we say "Colt Brennan is our Quarterback". There's a huge market for Jason Campbell's services, then. If the perception is that you are willing to trade a young franchise QB, the reality is that someone will pay you accordingly.

The point is, we never bothered to treat Jason Campbell like the future of our franchise, so other teams don't value him more highly than we do. He still might be the future, but at this point, he's unquestionably the present. We can't trade him for anything right now because of the way we acted around Cutler. A year from now, he'll probably have a ton of trade value, but we might be betteer off holding onto him anyway.