Commanders Secret NFL Draft Trade Plan: USC QB Caleb Williams in 2024?
Are the Washington Commanders playing Chess while everyone else in the NFL Draft is playing Checkers? Are the Commanders playing for the 2024 NFL Draft while everybody else is playing for Thursday ... all with the goal of landing USC quarterback Caleb Williams?
SI's Albert Breer writes in his team needs and projections piece that there is speculation that Washington could be "moving draft capital'' over to next year in a bid to land the D.C.-area native Williams, who could be the prize of next year's selection process.
"I, and most teams, would be very surprised if the Commanders took a quarterback (this year),'' Breer writes, "to the point where some have speculated the team could move capital into 2024 to ready for a run then at D.C.-area native Williams. (You probably have to be the worst team in the league to get him, because whoever that team is probably won't trade his rights away.)"
But wait. That's an awfully complex way to go about getting a QB. Breer writes, "Washington fans might want to brace themselves for a season of Sam Howell, Jacoby Brissett and Jake Fromm at quarterback (this year),'' and we get that; indeed, coach Ron Rivera and company have openly stated that as a distinct possibility. (We're not sure we'd include Fromm as a candidate for big-time snaps, but who knows?)
So we can't figure out Washington's genius plan. Be the worst team in the NFL on purpose this year? That doesn't seem very viable; the Commanders seem too close to middle-of-the-pack for that.
What about this "moving draft capital'' thing? Does that mean taking 2023 picks and trading them for 2024 picks to stockpile assets for a move up to the No. 1 spot in next year's NFL Draft? Again, that's a complicated way to build a program and it also would likely lead to another season of mediocrity ... which wouldn't be good for draft-pick stockpiling at all.
And one more thing: This is coach Rivera's plan? Meaning as he enters a hot-seat season working for an owner who didn't hire him ... "Riverboat Ron'' is going to take 2023 assets and invest them in a future that he won't be a part of?
"Farfetched'' is about as gentle a word as we can come up with here.
We think it's smarter for the expectations to be for the Commanders to push to be a playoff team next season. We think maybe with Penn State defensive star Joey Porter Jr. (who Breer mentions as a possible Thursday pick) or somebody of that caliber helping out right away, that Washington can contend for that berth.
That is, unless the Commanders have completely reinvented a way to be good in 2023 and still draft high in 2023 - "high'' as in all the way to Caleb at No. 1 - in which case one of the NFL's most traditionally dopey franchises somehow just got magically, impossibly smart.
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