Jay Glazer of Fox Sports first reported the news Friday night that the Washington Redskins have acquired the No. 2 overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft from the St. Louis Rams and it cost them this year’s first and second round picks as well as their first-round picks in 2013 and 2014.
The Redskins are now most certainly going to draft Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III after Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck is taken first overall by the Indianapolis Colts. The trade also signifies that the Redskins will not be making a run at free agent quarterback Peyton Manning as well. Manning was released from the Colts on Wednesday.
The Cleveland Browns had also been rumored to be a team that also had interest in trading up with the Rams, but evidently did not want to give up both of their two first round picks this year to do so. You can\’t rightly blame them.
In other shocking news Friday night the New York Jets announced that they had reached a contract extension with quarterback Mark Sanchez that will last through the 2016 season. That move effectively takes the Jets out of the Manning sweepstakes now as well.
Sanchez received $20.5 million in guaranteed money as part of the the new extension and it also includes $40.5 million in new money that brings the five-year total of the contract to $58.25 million. There is also another additional $10 million in escalators that can be earned according to the reports.
This NFL is a quarterback driven league for sure, but both of these moves are quite extreme in my opinion. The Redskins are basically “all in” on RG3 as are the Jets with Sanchez, who has a career 6.5 yards per attempt stat in his first three seasons in the league to go along with a career 73.2 passer rating. To his credit though, he does have two AFC Championship game appearances, but lost both of them.
Perhaps the happiest quarterback in the league tonight is Joe Flacco, who is currently trying to work out a contract extension with the Baltimore Ravens.
So what do you think of these two new developments?
