The Mid Round QB fallacy

[sportscurmudgeon]

About ten years ago, the scouts declared that there would be a bonanza of QBs in the draft. If I recall the order correctly it went like this:

1st overall: Tim Couch to the Browns

2nd overall: Donovan McNabb to the Eagles

3rd overall: Akili Smith to the Bengals

10th overall: Duante Culpepper to the Vikings

12th overall: Cade McNown to the Bears

Couch, Smith and McNown were busts to say the least. Culpepper had some good years until he suffered a humongous knee injury. McNabb has been a star.

The moral of the story is that a team's scouts had better know what they are doing when they feed the GM data on the player to take in the early rounds of the draft. There are quality players out there; it really hurts if a team misses out on the quality players and takes a dud.

For April 2010, an important - - and totally unanswerable - - question is this:

Will the Redskins' scouts get accurate data to the draft day decisionmakers on the potential players available in the early rounds of the draft?

It matters more than the Redskins get a quality player than the position that quality player occupies. I say this having been on record for 2 years now that the Skins' OL must be upgraded.

The team has multiple needs (as witnesed by a 4-12 record in 2009); what they cannot afford to do is to waste early round picks on players who are merely "decent". They need to find positive impact players in this draft - - and more than one.