The Washington Redskins Dilemma: An Unculture Argument
By: John Steinbrecher, Hershy Kulkarni, Carter
Hershy: Alright guys welcome to the first official Unculture Argument! Today, we’re gonna duke it out over the number 2 pick in the NFL Draft. The Redskins took the consensus best player in the draft, edge rusher Chase Young, passing on Tua Tagovailoa in the process. I thought it was a no-brainer, great pick, right?
John: Definitely the best player in the draft but was he really best for the Redskins? They have a lot more holes on that team than just an edge rusher that needs to be filled. Trading back from 2 to get more picks would have been the best way to get the Redskins moving in the right direction and fast. More picks means more potential to land star talent.
Carter: What’s up Hersh. You’re right, Chase Young was the best player available, but I’m gonna prove that Tua was the best fit. Just you watch. Okay, so I think it would be useful for us to lay out a basic thesis for why we each feel the way we do. Hersh, you go ahead and start.
Hershy: For me, it’s pretty clear. Chase Young is a generational talent that was, by all accounts, the single best player in the draft. From a football perspective, he immediately bolsters a Redskins defense. From a business perspective, having a dynamic, flashy edge rusher will finally give the Redskins an excuse to sell tickets for more than $11. Also, the alternative is too risky. You either draft an injury-prone Tua Tagovailoa that might not even start Week 1 or you trade back and draft more, less good players. Either way, the chances that either comes back to bite Ron Rivera is higher than just taking the best player available, end of story.
Carter: Nothing is more important in the modern NFL than finding a franchise quarterback. As it turns out, doing that is easier said than done. There are probably 10 guys in the whole NFL who can lead a good team to the promised land, and if you’re a team that does not have one of them under contract, your main priority should be to find one ASAP. The Redskins, as it happens, do not have a franchise QB, and instead have Dwayne Haskins. There was such a QB available at pick number 2, Tua Tagovailoa, who happens to be the most efficient quarterback in COLLEGE FOOTBALL HISTORY. They should have taken him, because there’s really only one guy coming around next year with a chance to be as special as Burrow or Tua, and the competition for him will be fierce. They should have grabbed their frontman while they could.
John: Honestly, football is considered the greatest team sport for a reason: you need every member doing their job in order for the team to have success. In a situation such as the Redskins, who are in a clear rebuild, where outside of Terry McLaurin, their roster is deprived of talent. Redskins need to trade back and get more picks in order to improve the team as a whole and not just add one star to their defensive line.
Hershy: Yes, football is the greatest team sport. Which is why a good defense matters too. It’s all well and fine to draft a franchise QB, but if you don’t pair him with a competent defense, you might as well literally place a fire under his ass. Chase Young will make the Redskins front 7 a formidable unit immediately. When you can generate a consistent pass rush, you hide other deficiencies on the defense. Let’s stick to “greatest team sport” and give Haskins a fighting chance with a good defense.
Carter: It’s the necessary but not sufficient argument there, John. Sure, drafting Tua wouldn’t have turned the ‘Skins into instant contenders, but there’s really no path to doing so without first finding your star under center. They’re sufficiently rare enough in free agency and the draft to justify prioritizing the position over all the others.
Carter: So part of the premise of my argument is that current starter Dwayne Haskins is not a franchise QB. Does anybody disagree with me on that?
John: I agree that you need a star under center, with quarterback being the most important position for a team to be successful. However, the jury is still out on Dwayne Haskins. There was far too much turmoil for him to have any success last year in the Redskins organization. He was missing his best lineman, he lost his coach halfway through his rookie year, and he wasn’t even getting first team reps in practice until Case Keenum got hurt. SO help him by getting more talent around him.
Hershy: We literally don’t know yet. Stop Josh Rosening him and give him a chance to breathe and learn in a system. What happened to giving quarterbacks three years to evaluate? If a team can give Mitch Trubisky three years, we can surely give Haskins two years, at least.
Carter: I feel like Trubisky isn’t the example you want to go with there, buddy. If the Bears had been quicker to realize that Mitch isn’t the guy, they could have taken advantage of a historically good defense and not, say, lost to Nick Foles and missed the playoffs in consecutive years. Haskins is the same: someone you can’t rely on going forward in an NFL that will only become more focused on spread concepts, deep throws, and a star quarterback that can handle that responsibility.
Hershy: Sure, but Mitch Trubisky also had to deal with regime changes, scheme changes, and personnel changes. Which is why it’s a particularly salient point. We have no idea how good Haskins will be, so let’s give him some time to develop and the front office time to evaluate. But you know who is definitively good? Chase Young.
Carter: Okay, since you brought him up, let’s talk about Chase Young. How good do we think he is, and how does that affect the way we think about the Redskins options at 2?
John: Honestly, at the college level Chase Young was very good. But that begs the question of whether it will translate to actual production in the NFL. There have been numerous high first round draft busts because drafting is not a science, so to increase their chances of getting it right on some picks this year the Redskins should have traded back to get a larger stockpile.
Hershy: Chase Young is a generational player. Chase had 16.5 sacks and 21 TFL in his last year at Ohio State. That’s in 12 GAMES. Imagine what Chase Young could do in 16!! Especially with the rest of the front 7 the Redskins currently have. With productive players like Montez Sweat, Jonathan Allen, and Ryan Kerrigan, the Redskins have some absolute dogs that opposing offenses already need to scheme against. Add Chase Young to that mix and Dak Prescott, Carson Wentz, and Daniel Jones suddenly have a very big problem on their hands.
Carter: I’m gonna throw somewhat of a curveball into this part of the argument: I think if the Redskins aren’t good in a few years, Chase Young will demand to be let out at some point before the end of his contract, a la Trent Williams. Stars in the NBA have already asserted their right to choose the team they want to play for, most frequently basketball players signed to a company called Klutch Sports run by a young man named Rich Paul. Guess where Chase Young signed the minute he got out of college and found out the Redskins were likely to take him? Klutch. You need a good team to convince good players to stay, and the quickest way to a good team is to acquire a star quarterback. A star quarterback… like Tua Tagovailoa.
Hershy: Or you pay the guy the big bucks, like he rightly will deserve. And okay, Trent Williams had a whole other HOST of issues with Redskins management, money or talent aside. Not a good comp there. Also, with the Rich Paul thing. Fine, cool comparison there. Redskins don’t need a franchise QB the very first year of the Chase Young era. They can grab one later if Haskins isn’t the guy. It’s okay to do that. That’s smart. What’s not smart is drafting Tua if Haskins ends up good as well. That’s a poor allocation of finite resources.
Carter: Whatever. Now we’re gonna move to what will be the most fun part of this for me. You guys are gonna have to make the case against Tua, who, once again, is the most efficient quarterback in college football history. Go ahead. Make my day.
John: Carter, you’re right, his production in college is unquestionable. Tua was a great quarterback, but for a team who drafted a quarterback last year to take a chance on another quarterback with significant injury history is an unnecessary risk. Odds are, he won’t even be ready to play this year with his hip injury. The team has so many holes right now that spending another high draft pick on will only stunt the speed that they can rebuild at. They need more talent at different positions than 2 talented unproven quarterbacks.
Hershy: Agree with the injury issue. Aside from that, obviously no one will argue against Tua’s talent. It’s undeniable and, if he can sidestep injuries, he could very well be a franchise QB. But what a question mark that is. And I promise you Ron Rivera did a risk management assessment of a risky Tua over a sure thing in Chase Young, and the decision they made speaks volumes.
Carter: John, I’m gonna use your status as a Josh Rosen truther against you. The Cardinals looked at him, looked at Kyler Murray, and realized that they had an opportunity to change their trajectory. I would argue that the new lease that franchise has on life is an excellent model for what to do when you’re unsure about your current starter and a better option is available in the draft.
John: If you’re going to go the Rosen route, let’s look at the situations they were in. Rosen was drafted to one of the worst teams in the NFL much like Haskins. It’s safe to say that Rosen didn’t get a fair shake at being a starting quarterback being behind one of the worst offensive lines with the only support for him being aging Fitzgerald. Dwayne Haskins was in an even worse situation being relegated to running scout team without any first team reps before being pushed into the starting job. The fact that new Coach Ron Rivera has kept him shows that the organization does have faith in Haskins to give him another year to grow in a more stable environment.
Carter: Sure, but my point is that from a team building perspective, it’s better to play the odds. Maybe there’s a 5% chance that Haskins and Rosen are better than their organizations gave them credit for, given the team that was around them. In the Cardinals case, it actually worked! That’s not enough to justify passing on a guy who pretty clearly is a better prospect. Joe Burrow went #1 overall after the greatest passing season in the history of the sport, and while it was happening, (prior to his injury) most analysts still liked Tua better.
Hershy: Play the odds? Okay, let’s do that. Chase Young, a generational pass rusher, versus Tua Tagovailoa, a walking injury. Who’s the better odds at #2? Seems crystal clear to me.
John: Playing the odds is exactly what the Redskins should have done. They have a bad o-line and just traded away Trent Williams, their best lineman, they lost 2 starting corners in free agency, and they lost their best tight-end in Jordan Reed. This team should have traded back from the number 2 spot to fill some of these many holes. Drafting in the NFL is almost like throwing darts blindfolded, anyone could be a hit and anyone could be a bust, but if you have more darts, you have a much better chance at hitting a bullseye.
Hershy: Sure, the draft was plenty deep. But who would you have taken instead that would be worth trading back for?
John: Okay, let’s assume, looking at the trade value chart, that they traded with Miami and were able to get the 5th and 30th in the first round. With the Lions more than likely taking Chase Young at third and the Giants sticking with Andrew Thomas it would leave Jeff Okudah available at 5 which would help fill a glaring hole at cornerback potentially getting a shutdown corner. With the 30th pick, they could have taken another cornerback in Noah Igbinoghene or looked for a tackle like Robert Hurt to replace Trent Williams. This would have helped speed up the rebuild tackling two problems at once rather than one position at a time.
Hershy: You really think that, 1) the Giants would have passed up on Okudah and 2) an acceptable corner and tackle would have matched the impact of a Chase Young?
Carter: The draft strategy you’re outlining makes more sense for a team that already has a quarterback! I’m sorry if I sound like a broken record, but filling holes at corner and tackle are like putting flex seal on the portholes of the Titanic. A pure value play is an intriguing third route, but ultimately it doesn’t pass the smell test for a team that’s been floundering for the better part of a decade.
Hershy: Do the Giants regret taking Saquon over Baker? No, they don’t. Same thing, different team.
Carter: Hersh, what happened to worrying about injuries, you flip flopper? Starting to sound like Mitt Romney at the third debate over here.
John: Strictly from a value perspective, it maximizes the amount of holes they could plug on their sinking ship. Carter, have the Redskins been floundering lately? Yes. However, they have a new coach in Ron Rivera who has been proven to coach and build a solid team. So why not give him more ammunition to build the team he wants in Washington?
Hershy: They got their guy in Daniel Jones the year afterward. And now they have two pieces to build around. If you pass up on Chase Young, you may never get a Chase Young caliber prospect for a long time. But on the horizon is Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields. You will certainly get a swing at a quality, franchise QB (with potentially even less injury risk) in the future. Why not grab talent when they fall in your lap? Giants listened to that and I don’t think very many will look back critically on that decision.
John: Alright, once Carter starts dipping into his politics references, I know it’s time to wrap things up.
Carter: Fair. Let’s get into closing thoughts and how this conversation has changed the way we think about this pick. From my perspective, I think it’s clear the biggest hang ups that Washington had with Tua were 1) his injury history and 2) the fact that Haskins wasn’t exactly given a fair shake. I can understand the decision to take Chase Young and the argument for trading down in a pretty deep first round. I still think we’re missing just how historically good Tua is, and how important it is to find a QB, but maybe you guys aren’t total dummies.
John: After all this I definitely see where you’re both coming from: Chase Young and Tua are both generational talents, and it’s extremely difficult to pass up on them when you know they could make an instant impact to the team. Tua could be the long-term solution at quarterback, and Young could give opposing quarterbacks trouble for years. In this case, however, I can’t get past the fact that the Redskins are suffering in so many departments, and that trading down from 2 and getting more picks would’ve sped up this rebuild process.
Hershy: All fair points, but I think history will be kind to the Redskins choosing Chase Young. He’s a historically good prospect, with PFF giving him the highest grade ever for an edge rusher. Rivera set his regime up with a great, safe pick and no one should blame him for it.
Alright, that’s it for our first argument, held simultaneously over FaceTime and on a Google Doc. Let us know in the replies what you thought of the format, whether you’re on Carter, John, or Hershy’s side, or if we missed any important points that needed to be made.
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