Washington Redskins: Scot McCloughan Pre-Draft Presser

Washington Redskins GM Scot McCloughan held his pre-draft press conference Monday in which he shared a few interesting nuggets. Below we’ll post a few notable quotes and discuss what it means for the team.

“But, the last thing you do is take yourself out of a really good football player. Get too cute with yourself, go back too far, and all the sudden, I have say 10-15 guys I want to pinpoint that I think can come in Day 1 and start, you go too far back and you’re going to lose out on some of those guys. You’ve got to be careful.”

Scot McCloughan made a good point in saying that you have to be careful and not get too cute with trading back. You can’t trade back just to trade back. It has to make sense for the football team. McCloughan says he’ll have 10-15 players that he’ll pinpoint. Based on what many scouts have said — of those 10 to 15 there’s probably about five players McCloughan considers elite prospects.

“Well, the thing with tackles, especially with left tackles, we know – we’re lucky to have Trent here – size, arm length, foot quickness, flexibility in the lower [body], being able to adjust, movement. I think you want your tackles to be your bigger guys – taller and longer. With our guards and with Coach [Bill] Callahan and what our plans are is power. You know, in-line power. We’re talking 320-plus [pounds] hopefully, coming off, head-butting and going. We want to be able to run the football, it’s very important. It sets up everything else for us. The center, of course, is usually the leader. He needs to be highly intelligent, be able to read the defenses and make the checks he needs to make. But again, at any one of those positions, we want big guys, we want smart guys and we want tough guys. I’ll give a little bit on athletic ability – especially inside at guard and center – for just a consistent football player that gets out there every day and you know exactly what you’ve got.”

I was surprised that McCloughan went in depth on what he looks for in offensive linemen. Based on what McCloiughan said about the O-Linemen, these are the top names that came to mind:

OT: Cedric Ogbuehi and Andrus Peat
OG: La’el Collins (who I also think can play OT) and Brandon Scherff
C: B.J. Finney

“The O-Line we’re addressing.”

This sentence stuck out to me. It lets me know that Offensive Line is clearly something McCloughan wants to address in the draft. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens as early as the first or second round. I definitely wouldn’t be shocked if its one of the players we just mentioned.

On Dashon Goldson: “You know, I was very lucky to draft him when I was in San Fran and he was a corner coming out of the University of Washington.”

I’m glad that McCloughan mentioned the fact he drafted Goldson and converted him to safety. I think there’s a chance he could do that in this year’s draft. Having Goldson on the team could help that player convert more seamlessly.

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