Redskins' Spotty Draft History

Argue all you want over the Washington Redskins' first-round draft picks, or better yet, don't bother. You'll only be maddened, exhausted, and finally bored. The future doesn't depend on them anyway, not really. It's the other guys, the unobserved second-day choices and the undrafted free agents, the ones you've barely heard of, or never heard of at all, that might matter more.

The rookies have arrived in minicamp, including those exquisitely valuable and soon-to-be moneyed creatures, Carlos Rogers and Jason Campbell, who will be figures of curiosity if not outright fixation thanks to their first-round status. Did Coach Joe Gibbs do the right thing in drafting them, and in that order? Who knows? You could interrogate Gibbs with police dogs and still not get a satisfactory answer, one we can all agree on. What's important is how well the Redskins did in the rest of the draft.

There is no disguising the fact that the Redskins have been terrible in the lower rounds in recent years. A chicken could peck at a piece of paper and make a good first-round pick. But the real substance of team-building is done in the late hours, in the down-and-dirty rounds when you find the nuts and bolts of a team, the more commonplace and reliable players, the crucial spare-tire guys, and, sometimes, the bargain stars among the inconspicuous, the unrenowned and the passed by.

Fullback Manuel White of UCLA, fourth round. Linebacker Robert McCune of Louisville, fifth round. Linebacker Jared Newberry, Stanford, sixth round. Fullback Nehemiah Broughton, The Citadel, seventh round. They, and a dozen undrafted free agents who will join them in minicamp that starts today, are the players who, collectively, more likely will determine whether the Redskins succeed or fail under Gibbs than Campbell or Rogers.

The Redskins have failed miserably in this area previously. Where there should be good utility players and genuine finds on their roster, there are voids. They could have brought in litters of French bulldogs over the past five years and gotten more value. If you seek evidence of this, just count.

The Redskins have drafted 17 players in the last three years. Only four of them start. This is the central reason why the Redskins are never appreciably better from year to year, why nothing changes and everything stays the same, which is to say, 6-10. It's only April, but does anyone else have the feeling that we already know what's going to happen to the Redskins in November? This is not a knock on Gibbs, who after all is only in his second season as team president -- it's a knock on the systemic rot that has plagued the Redskins under owner Dan Snyder, the inability to cultivate players from within.

The Redskins have signed and cut players with a mania, as if they are sucking in too much oxygen and drinking too much coffee. Their draft performance looks even worse when you compare it to those of the teams around them. Namely the three-time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, who have shown an engraver's patience and a deep attention to the most marginal-seeming players.

In 2000, the Redskins drafted LaVar Arrington and Chris Samuels in the first round. Wonderful first-round picks -- who haven't made the slightest difference to their won-loss record. They also drafted six other guys -- not one of whom is still with the team.

In 2001, they drafted five players, including Rod Gardner in the first round, Fred Smoot in the second and Darnerien McCants in the fifth. Fine. They also took Sage Rosenfels and Mario Monds. In 2002, they took quarterback Patrick Ramsey in the first and Ladell Betts in the second. They drafted eight other players too. Guess how many are still with the team? Three.

In 2003, they gave away most of their picks in order to sign restricted free agents. Last year, they drafted Sean Taylor with the fifth overall pick, gave up a second-round pick for Clinton Portis and traded a third-rounder for benched quarterback Mark Brunell.

The sum of all this: Prior to last weekend's draft, the Redskins had 75 players on the roster, but only 16 of them were their own draft choices.

And who knows how many of those will still be with the team six weeks from now, on June 1 after the first roster cuts? Or how many will get on the field with any regularity in the 2005 season.

Now let's turn to the Patriots. They've taken 24 players in the last three drafts, not including last weekend. Twenty are still on the team. Eight of them are starters.

Here's something even more stunning about their draft record: A total of 13 second-day picks taken since 2000 are still with the Patriots. And they aren't just stolid nameless role players. A lot of them are genuine talents who burn with that special ambition only the scorned have. Which is why no one laughed when they made Andrew Stokes, a small tight end from William Penn, the last player chosen in the 2005 draft.

It's often said that you can't see what's inside of a player, only the outside. But this isn't strictly true. The Patriots have demonstrated an eye, and an ear, for the inner components of talent. They have an eye for tenacity, and an ear for willingness and deep humility. One of their late-rounders was of course Tom Brady, the most famous 199th pick ever. Another is David Givens, a seventh-rounder in 2002, who has merely become the team's leading receiver.

The Patriots aren't the only team that understands this secret, of course. The Philadelphia Eagles do, too. They've drafted 24 players in the last three years. Eighteen are on the team. Six are starters.

It remains to be seen whether the Redskins under Gibbs's management will have the same understanding and discernment for so-called lesser players. All teams make measured guesses when it comes to the draft. But some teams have made routinely good guesses, while the Redskins have regularly made bad ones. So if you want to judge the future of the Redskins under Gibbs, don't look to Rogers and Campbell. Look further down, among the unheeded and the unsung.