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Things Bad Organizations Do, Part 1

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2012 NFL Draft - First Round

The Oakland Raiders have determined that the greatest athletic talent to emerge in American sports since Joba Chamberlain is not one of the 75 best players on their roster:

Out on the field, in uniform this summer, he was just No. 33.

He was just a guy in a sea of players, some great ones, many certain to make the 53-man roster, and others just trying to hang on. No. 33 was lumped with that last group.

He looked like a small, ordinary running back. He struggled to show much vision, cutting ability and burst. Those are all things essential for a great running back, and often reserved for those taken very high in the draft.

Trent Richardson just wasn’t that guy in Oakland. He deserved to be cut in the round of 75 as he was Tuesday, because he was just a guy.

The only thing newsworthy in Oakland about his release was the Raiders were silly enough to give him $600,000 in guaranteed money this spring.

There are some valuable lessons here. First of all, in modern football you should not burn a top 3 draft choice on a running back because you think that you can identify the kind of once-in-a-generation talent that could even conceivably justify investing an elite pick on a running back ex ante, because you can’t. You should especially not trade additional picks for the privilege of doing so. You should not trade a first round pick to acquire a running back after 17 replacement-level games, because, I dunno, somebody bet Ryan Grigson that anybody could put up decent numbers running behind the Indianapolis offensive line and he needed the money? And — while this is less damaging, of course — you should not offer $600 grand in guaranteed money for a running back after 3 seasons of sub-sub-replacement level play at a position where it’s not terribly difficult to find perfectly adequate players. You’re welcome!

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