Few people expected defensive lineman Leonard Williams to be on the board for the fifth pick of the first round last Thursday night and those that did likely thought thought that the Redskins would be happy to add him to their defense.
Washington went a different way, however, and selected offensive lineman Brandon Scherff. Scherff was among those surprised to hear his name called by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and General Manager Scot McCloughan explained Monday what went into the choice to leave Williams for the Jets with the sixth pick by taking Scherff.
“The thing about Leonard -- very good football player,” McCloughan said. “I was hoping to be able to move back there and it didn’t happen. Everyone was talking about trading up, trading up to our spot but it was all for [third overall pick Dante] Fowler. Once Fowler went, then all the talks went off the board. Leonard is a good football player. If for some reason Brandon would have been gone, he probably would have been 1B, 1C right there. We were lucky enough in free agency to do some things on the defensive side. Going into this thing I knew we needed some help up front on the offensive side and it was too good of a bang for the buck to not get Brandon there.”
McCloughan said that he wanted his first pick with the team to be an “impressive person” that the team can build around and said he felt that Scherff qualified as that kind of player. His evaluation of which player best fit that goal may have differed from the popular opinion of what he should have done and it will take a few years to know if that was a sound call, just as it would have been if the Redskins had taken Williams last week.