ESPN’s Mel Kiper Gave the Redskins a C+ for the 2020 NFL Draft

As is the case ever year at the conclusion of the NFL Draft. ESPN draft insider Mel Kiper Jr. gives out his grades to all 32 teams. You can view them here.

This year, Mel gave the Redskins a C+ for their three-day effort in the 2020 NFL virtual draft. Here is his reasoning behind the grade he chose.

With a new coach (and 3-13 season) comes roster turnover, and Ron Rivera has worked hard this offseason to bring in veterans to help the team on both sides of the ball. And with no second-round pick after the old regime traded back into Round 1 last year to take Montez Sweat, Rivera & Co. were left with only the No. 2 overall pick in the first two rounds. So you shouldn’t be surprised when I say I like that Washington got my top-ranked overall prospect in edge rusher Chase Young, one of the most NFL-ready pass-rushers to come out of college in the past decade. Yes, this team has now drafted a defensive lineman in the first round in each of the past four years (Young, Sweat, Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen), but it couldn’t afford to pass on Young, who has All-Pro talent. Rivera is a defensive coach, and he has a really good front seven to build around. “It would have been very, very hard to convince me that somebody else would be as impactful as the guy that we drafted,” Rivera said on Thursday night. I agree, though really Young fell into their laps. The Redskins also got an interesting running back/wide receiver prospect with Antonio Gibson (66), who caught 44 passes and also averaged 11.2 yards per carry on 33 rushes last season. A smart playcaller will get him 10 touches a game. Antonio Gandy-Golden (142) is a 6-foot-4 raw wideout with a massive 77-inch wingspan. He attacks the ball in the air, though he’ll need some time to develop. Saahdiq Charles (108) looks like a starting-caliber NFL offensive tackle, but the tape didn’t match his talent. Young was a bit of a gimme pick at No. 2, and without a second-rounder I’ll stick with a C-plus for Washington.

A grade of C, was the lowest that Kiper handed out. Only two teams, the Packers and Falcons, received grades lower than the Redskins. There were seven other teams who also received a C+ - Bears, Broncos, Texans, Chiefs, Patriots, Saints and Titans.

It appears Mel almost knocked the Redskins getting the best overall player in this draft(Chase Young) by saying he “fell into their laps”.

Well, duh...what were we supposed to do - take Andrew Thomas at number two overall?

Kiper also had this to say about Saahdiq Charles:

“Saahdiq Charles (108) looks like a starting-caliber NFL offensive tackle, but the tape didn’t match his talent.”

- So my question to this is - did he REALLY watch the tape, or maybe was Mel watching the games Charles sat out; because in the games he did play against the best team’s LSU faced, he was VERY good.

Finally there is this little nugget from Ron Rivera about Chase Young that Kiper included:

“It would have been very, very hard to convince me that somebody else would be as impactful as the guy that we drafted,”

- This tells me two things: 1)The team supposedly DID field trade offers from other teams looking to move up in the draft, but the Redskins believed that Young was too valuable to pass up on; and 2)There really was not another prospect at number two overall that the team would have seriously considered drafting over Young.