We are in the NFL’s most dead time of the year. The time when players are left to prepare their bodies for the start of training camp in July. There’s no major news coming out of the league or the organizations that make it up, and we’re left to our own devices, which means PFF is doing re-drafts of previous NFL drafts using the information we have now to predict which players a team would have taken had they known what would happen.
Their latest redraft was the 2013 NFL draft, and if you remember correctly, the Washington Commanders didn’t have a first-round pick that year. That year’s pick would have been 22nd overall, but the Commanders traded it to the St. Louis Rams in the blockbuster trade that allowed them to draft Robert Griffin III in 2012.
One of the most dramatic trades in NFL history, the Commanders gave up three first-round picks (2012, 2013, 2014) and their second-round pick in 2012. At first, it seemed brilliant as RGIII was the Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2012, but injuries and internal issues resulted in him leaving the organization after the 2015 season. He played eight seasons in total, the latter half of which he spent serving as a backup.
Originally, the Rams held Washington’s 2013 first-round pick but traded it to the Falcons, who selected cornerback Desmond Trufant out of Washington. PFF suggests they would instead draft wide receiver Robert Woods out of USC.
Had the Commanders stayed with the sixth pick in 2012, they still could have selected Kirk Cousins (as PFF suggests in their 2012 redraft), and then they would have retained that 22nd pick in 2013. Who would they have selected then? We could go down this rabbit hole for a while, but let’s just stop while we’re ahead. The Commanders didn’t have a 2013 first-round draft pick, so in the 2013 PFF re-draft, they don’t have a pick either. But it’s still fun to play the ‘what if’ game.
This article originally appeared on Commanders Wire: Commanders have no picks in PFF’s 2013 re-draft