Did Adam Peters err by not taking more offensive tackles in the draft?

No general manager in the history of the Washington franchise has enjoyed the honeymoon now being experienced by Adam Peters. After the decades-long reign of error by Daniel Snyder and his henchmen, perhaps this should not be surprising. A fan base that is used to being critical of its front office is suddenly basking in the glow of goodwill. An astounding 97% of fans think that the Commanders were winners in the draft. We have entered a hall of mirrors in which fans who once were dyed-in-the-wool iconoclasts have become fawning admirers of the new guy, aggressively challenging any questioning of or negative comment about the GM.

Before we enter Peters into the General Manager Hall of Fame prematurely, it is well to remember that this is the first draft for which he was responsible as GM. How many GMs execute their first draft – or any draft – flawlessly? In addition, he comes from San Francisco, which Bobby_Gould showed earlier this week to be an organization that chronically reaches in the draft – and most of their reaches are unsuccessful.

That said, this article is not a critique of Peters globally. In fact, I am generally quite happy with the new regime. Peters is likeable, and that alone is a refreshing change. I like “the process” in general. I like most of the choices that he made in the draft. I am very happy with the roster additions in the offseason. I am delighted with the coaching staff that he and his new head coach have built. So, please keep in mind that my criticism is not a critique of Peters as a person, the front office, the draft in general, or Peters’ track record so far as GM. My position is that he made one very important mistake in the draft: he did not get the offensive linemen that he needed even though they were available.

Why did the Commanders need more than one OT in this draft?

The Commanders addressed OT by selecting Brandon Coleman early in Round 3. He was the 13^th OT chosen in the draft. Why is this not enough? Offensive tackle is the second most important position in football after quarterback, and it is difficult to fill. Here were the reasons to take more than one in the 2024 draft.

1. This team needs OTs, its second highest area of need after QB. Neither current projected starter is a top NFL OT. The pipeline is dry because of neglect; only one OT (Sam Cosmi) has been drafted in the first or second round in the past decade, a record that remains intact after this year. And Cosmi is now a guard.
2. Any NFL team needs at least three if not more quality OTs on the roster because offensive linemen get hurt and reserves play. It would be unwise to count on any of Washington’s reserves to suddenly blossom into quality OTs.
3. It takes years to develop most OTs and other OL. Most college OL need one to three years of physical, mental, and skill development to be ready to play in the NFL. Every team needs a pipeline. It is usually uncertain whether an OT taken after the first couple of rounds will make it at all, or how long it will take for that player to mature. And no one can predict when injuries to starters will create a need for the OT to play. Therefore, any team needs to draft players now who will be able to start in future years, not necessarily in 2024.
4. Good OTs rarely become available on the free agent market, and if they do they are very expensive. This year has been especially bad for OTs; those available are mostly old, broken down, and/or injured.
5. This was a historic year to take multiple OL in the draft. It was perhaps the deepest OL class, and OT class in particular, ever. OTs were drafted in every round; 17 were taken in the top 100 picks; 27 were taken overall.
6. The teams that have historically been the best drafters loaded up on OL this year.

The major objection raised on the board to drafting an OT in the second round, or to drafting another OT later, is that any OT at those positions would have been a “reach” compared to the wise choices the Commanders made. Is that true?

Reaches in the Draft

Calling a player a “reach” or “steal” in the draft requires a baseline. A reach or steal compared to what?

Usually, that comparison is the actual pick number versus the draft value of the pick according to the big board of a single commentator or of the consensus of all mock drafts. There is enough variability in the ratings of individual commentators that it makes more sense to use the consensus rating, representing the wisdom of the crowd.

The consensus rating, obviously, is imperfect. It will be wrong in many cases. It will be different from the draft board of every individual team, which will always be idiosyncratic for good reasons and bad. But the consensus represents the common wisdom. The series this week by Bobby_Gould gives excellent evidence for the merits of the consensus ranking. Most teams’ draft picks are relatively close to the consensus. Where they are not, the team deviating from the consensus often is making mistakes (as San Francisco and the Raiders have in recent years). Overall, radical departures from the consensus big board fail about as often as they succeed.

The consensus rating that I use in this article is the NFL Mock Draft Database Consensus Big Board. Note that minor deviations (about 10 picks) from consensus are meaningless and are just false precision. Major deviations (half a round or more) are noteworthy. Also, deviations early in the draft are more important than those late in the draft. There is tremendous variability in ratings for players taken in late rounds, and drafting differently from the consensus probably matters less at that point.

People have argued that the terms “reach” and “steal” cannot be based on an external standard, only on the team’s own board. This is entirely too forgiving of anything the team would do. The terms then become merely an intelligence test: was the team so stupid that it did not follow its own board? Of course, the team’s choices reflect the team’s judgments. The meaningful question is whether those choices are different from some external standard, which is what makes them a reach or a steal. The longer term question is whether deviations from consensus were better or worse than choices of the consensus. I do not take it for granted that a reach is bad. GMs make their money by betting on players that others overlook. I also want to know if the GM is chronically reaching or finding steals.

Washington’s Draft Reaches This Year

The glowing commentary on Washington’s draft picks has led many on Hogs Haven to assume that essentially all of its picks represented great value. In comparison to the consensus big board, this is not the case. Table 1 displays Washington’s pick numbers versus the consensus rankings.

Table 1

Some conclusions from this table.

1. The first three picks represented good value. The first pick was going to be for a QB, not the receivers put in the top five on the consensus board. Daniels was a good choice by the standard of the consensus big board. Newton represented a good value. He was not the “full round steal” that has been claimed recently and he was not a top 10 pick. His consensus rating was about a third of a round above where he was taken, and we’ll take it, especially at that point in the draft. Mike Sainristil was a good value, but not a sensational one. He was taken within ten slots of where he had been rated, which is good at that point in the draft but not the “first round value” some have claimed.
2. Every pick after Sainristil represented a major reach. The next five picks were a reach of at least one round. The last pick was a minor reach, but in the seventh round that should not be a concern.
3. The positives have been emphasized about each of these picks and many have a hard time accepting that each is a major gamble, but all of them are excellent athletes who are very raw. For example, Sinnott is not a good route runner at this point and is a very willing, but highly inconsistent blocker. That is not a typical second round choice. McCaffrey was the biggest reach; it is hard to believe that he would have been chosen at pick 100 if he had a different last name. He is still a very raw WR who has only played the position for two years. And so on. Note that their only OL pick, Brandon Coleman, was also a reach of just over a round. More on that below.
4. This draft is consistent with the pattern that Bobby_Gould found for San Francisco’s drafts. Of course, Adam Peters came to Washington this year from San Francisco. It is noteworthy that most of the recent reaches by the 49ers were failures. Perhaps the reaches in this draft will have a different outcome, or perhaps not. I’m from Missouri on the outcome. What is clear in May of 2024 is that they reached time and again.

Where there any good OTs available when Washington picked?

Many have claimed that there were no offensive tackles worth taking in the draft when Washington picked. Let’s consider that claim. Table 2 presents the data.

Most of the OTs taken after Round 1 were a reach to some degree. However, that doesn’t automatically make them a poor pick, any more than Washington’s reaches automatically were poor picks. The important point is that Washington’s choices represented greater reaches than offensive linemen available to them, every single time.

Let’s consider Washington’s draft choices and who they missed at OT with those choices.

• Johnny Newton was rated higher on the consensus board than any of the OTs not taken in the first round and he represented a major value. His value trumped team needs.
• When Mike Sainristil was taken, they had a choice. Kingsley Suamataia was rated 31 versus Sainristil’s 40. The OT was rated higher, although close enough to give them essentially the same value. Kansas City snapped him up later in the round, gaining considerable value in the process. Those who doubt Suamataia’s value might keep in mind that KC is one of the best drafting teams in the league.

Table 2

• When Washington took Ben Sinnott at 53, there were four OTs with consensus ratings at or above Sinnott’s on the board (Patrick Paul, Blake Fisher, Roger Rosengarten, and Kiran Amegadjie). All were taken soon after Sinnott. Paul was rated considerably higher than Sinnott; the others were essentially equivalent in consensus value.
• When Washington took Luke McCaffrey, they had a choice of two OTs with a rating better than, or equivalent to, McCaffrey’s rating of 138: Christian Jones and Javon Foster. Foster went in the next round, and Jones was available until the fifth.
• When Washington took Magee and Hampton in the fifth round, they ignored Christian Jones, who was ranked 118. That was 62 spots higher than Magee (two rounds) and 74 places greater than Hampton (more than two rounds). I had done a draft profile on Jones and thought he was a good prospect. As I listened to the draft, I could not believe that Washington had passed on Jones, essentially the last available quality OT in the draft. The Commanders took two huge reaches over a huge steal of an OT in the 5^th round.

In summary, Washington could have take an OT of equal or greater value to the player they took at every pick after Newton. Given the compelling need to take multiple OTs in a historic year for them, Washington failed to address its second biggest need.

What Should Washington Have Done?

Given Adam Peters’ emphasis on raw, but gifted athletes, the OT most in keeping with the players they took elsewhere would have been Suamataia.

If I were drafting, I would have taken Newton, then a CB. The reason was simply numbers. This was not a year with a large number of quality CBs, and there were many choices at OT. I would have preferred a boundary CB to address their biggest need in the secondary, but Sainristil was a good choice.

Their biggest mistake in the draft was taking Sinnott at 53. A TE simply does not have the value of an OT, and TE was not as huge a need as OT for Washington. I think it is likely that Washington could have taken an OT at 53 and then taken Sinnott at the top of the third round instead of Coleman. He still would have been a significant reach at that point. It does not matter which of the four available tackles they took at 53; they had roughly equivalent value. FWIW, if I were choosing, it would have been Rosengarten or Paul. I would have taken Christian Jones instead of McCaffrey at pick 100.

Taking two huge reaches on defense in the 5^th round and missing a steal in the form of Jones was inexcusable. If they had come away from the draft with an OT at 53 and Jones in the 5^th, they would have appropriately addressed their second biggest need in the draft. Coming away with only with a third round pick this year was a mistake.

A Final Thought

Fans do what they do and are excited about the team’s picks. Johnny Newton is the next Aaron Donald! Sainristil will transform the secondary! Sinnott is an All-Pro TE and an All-Pro FB rolled into one! And so on down the line. My favorite: we can’t criticize the safety they took in the fifth round because they just drafted the next Kam Chancellor, and we’re bringing back the Legion of Boom over a dozen years after the original!

A little perspective is in order. A case can be made for every pick, but most will never contribute significantly to the team. If four of the nine picks become eventual starters, that would be an outstanding draft. The odds are that most picks won’t contribute. The draft is a probability game. This was the year to stack the odds in its favor of finding a future starter at OT. Washington did not get that job done.