Welcome to our Draft Prep series at Hogs Haven. We have loads of time to hone in on individual picks and the many player and position debates that will ensure. Today we are simply looking at seven rounds as if we were just making one pick in each round.
In each of these posts--all of which will hit us in rapid fire this evening--the writer was given just the round in which he was picking. At this point, we are all free to make assumptions about what we will need when that pick comes around and each person was asked to pick two players that he would be choosing between if the pick was his to make.
For each round, we are simply making assumptions about which other positions have been addressed. We are not conferencing with each other at this stage so there could be some overlap of both positions and players. This first iteration of Draft Prep posts is meant to create a baseline for both the guys who will be covering these rounds as we move forward and for everyone's comments in the discussion that will shape the debate that won't end...ever. Every post has a poll for us all to vote on one of the two guys presented. Feel free to suggest other names in rounds where they make sense, but please vote on the polls.
We will layer in the additional picks in each round that the Redskins possess as we move forward and begin determining if the players we are identifying at this point are either moving up or down the draft board. Our goal is to get to April with a pretty good sense of not just what we think the Redskins will do, but what we all think the Redskins should do.
In the first round, I am going to make the assumption that we will not trade up for Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin. I think Justin Blackmon will be gone by the time our turn comes--and yes, I would strongly consider taking him if he fell to us. Based on this, I am calling for an offensive tackle to be selected by the Redskins. It will come down to Riley Rieff and Jonathan Martin.
Riley Reiff is a 6'6" tackle weighing in right at 300 pounds. He started all but two of his games for Iowa, where they know a little bit about offensive lines. He is adept at both run blocking as well as pass blocking and is considered more than just a consolation prize for whomever doesn't get Matt Kalil. He could easily be good enough to move Trent Williams to the right side, but would at the very minimum give the Shanahans a guy who can play both sides of the line.
Jonathan Martin, similar in size to Rieff, protected Andrew Luck at Stanford. One aspect of the offense at Stanford that often went overlooked was their very decent ground game. Martin was instrumental in paving the way for a rather potent rushing attack while looking after Luck's blind side. He would also come in as a legit left tackle prospect.
It should be noted that Trent Williams might be a natural right tackle in the NFL. If we pick the right guy to come in and play on the left side, we would have a pair of bookend tackles that could protect our quarterback for a decade.