Football Outsiders: Redskins dead last in under-25 talent

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Buster

This is completely irrelevant...the players limited to "under 25" are a small percentage of all players in the league and many players don't accomplish as much in their first few years anyways. The rookie team leader is the exception to the rule most of the time. Rarely does a player like Adrian Peterson come in and take over the league in their rookie season. Only when a team was desperate at a position is this even possible for a young player to be inserted onto the top of the depth chart immediately. Look how many draft picks there are...many will be out of the league by age 26. Few will be starting and making an impact.

Proof: Look at the mediocre teams on top of this list. The Texans are up-and-coming, well, we'll see how losing Kyle Shanahan affects them.

This is a stat that just doesn't matter, so if the Skins are dead last...it doesn't worry me one bit. It's no secret we've tried to add proven vets to most positional needs, except for Left Tackle. After the worst season I've ever seen, loading up with young players and rookies won't help turn it around immediately. Lets win now. We DO have some great young core players who can be here long term,: Fred Davis, Devin Thomas, Trent Williams, Justin Tryon...many others.

We've had a rough decade, lets get this turned around ASAP.

Well, the teams near the front of the list have certainly had a draft position advantage over other teams in the last five years or so. It's hard to pick in the bottom eight year after year and maintain top levels of under-25 talent, so teams like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New England, Philadelphia, New York, and Indianapolis end up sliding into the middle.

The Redskins, of course, need to rank above these teams because they aren't anywhere near them in the here and now, so you'd like to have them beat in the "later". When you rank last (or second to last, or fourth, or wherever we actually are) it just means that the super bowl is an unreasonable goal. If we could run with the best teams in the NFL as is, we'd be doing it. We're good enough this year to smack around some bad teams, I think, but nationally, that doesn't get you as much respect as if you could do that with younger players.