The Final Tally On The Robert Griffin III Trade Is In, And It's Ugly For Washington
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We now know exactly which draft picks that the Washington Redskins sent to the St. Louis Rams before the 2012 NFL Draft for the right to draft Robert Griffin III.After a dismal year, the Redskins will have to send their No. 2 overall pick in 2014 to St. Louis. Here's the final tally on the trade:
- Redskins get: 2nd-overall pick (2012)
- Rams get: 2nd-overall pick (2014), 6th-overall pick (2012), 22nd-overall pick (2013), 39th-overall pick (2012)
Purely in terms of draft pick value, it's a jackpot for the Rams.
How so?
Chase Stuart of Pro Football Reference came up with a system to determine the expected career value of every draft pick in 2008. Using his "approximate value" algorithm, Stuart was able to put a numeric value on every draft position using historical data. The No. 1 pick is worth 73 points of value, for example, whereas the 100th pick is worth 15 points of value.
The approximate value for every draft position can be found over at PFR.
When you apply this algorithm to the RGIII trade, you see how well St. Louis made out. Here it is in chart form:
The Redskins acquired 73 points of value in the trade.
The Rams acquired 176 points of value.
Pretty much every advanced stat and study says that NFL executives overvalue high draft picks. So no matter what, St. Louis was always going to "win" the trade using this methodology.
But neither team could have predicted that the Redskins would be so bad in 2013 that they'd end up giving a No. 2 pick right back to St. Louis.