Post-draft Monday is normally a good day for us to question why the general manager of our favorite team didn't pick the same players who televised analysts said were better than the ones our team actually picked.
So naturally, that made us curious to hear what Washington Redskins general manager Scot McCloughan had to say about taking guard/tackle Brandon Scherff over Leonard Williams, a defensive end believed by some to be the best player in this year's draft.
Here's McCloughan:
"The thing about Leonard (Williams) -- very good football player," he said. "I was hoping to be able to move back there and it didn't happen. Everyone was talking about trading up, trading up to our spot but it was all for (Dante) Fowler. Once Fowler went (to the Jaguars), then all the talk went off the board. Leonard is a good football player. If for some reason Brandon (Scherff) would have been gone, he probably would have been your one seed. ... Going into this thing I knew we needed some help up front on the offensive side and it was too good of a bang for the buck to not get Brandon there."
Like we said before, it's impossible to fault McCloughan for this until we see how both players fit their respective systems and how they perform in games.
Just because Williams was believed to be the better player doesn't make it so.
It's also interesting to hear about a mad rush to get into the top five for a player not named Jameis Winston or Marcus Mariota. Before the draft, one of our predictions centered around the fact that we were probably all ignoring another coveted player atop the draft. Jacksonville might have ended up the luckiest team out there, not the Jets, who ended up with Williams at No. 6.
But either way, this was McCloughan's first draft, and he could not betray his board. Locked in a room with everyone he's now managing, what kind of message would it have sent to everyone that, all of a sudden, the team is picking their 1B player over their 1A player just because you could't move back?
Maybe McCloughan is losing on post-draft Monday, but none of the good general managers care much about that.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast breaks down the 2015 NFL Draft, picking out the biggest winners and losers. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW.
