It is all but given that the St. Louis Rams are going to trade the #2 overall pick, allowing some other team (likely Washington) to move up and select Robert Griffin III. The expected ransom is a swap of top 10 picks, 3rd and 5th round picks this year and a 1st and 3rd next year. That is an awful lot to give up, and the spotlight will shine brightly on whether RG3 proves worth it.
But there is another side to that light, and that is what the Rams do with the booty. There will be quite a bit of pressure on the Rams to parlay all those picks into great success. A look at some blockbuster ransoms of draft years past reveals a mixed bag.
Ricky Williams to the Saints: the most famous draft trade, as Mike Ditka traded his entire 1999 draft, and then some, to Washington to move up and select Ricky Williams. Washington picked up picks #12, 71, 107, 144, 179, and 218 in that draft plus #2 and 64 the following year.
Here’s what Washington ended up with for Williams:
#12, #71 and #144 were packaged together and traded to Chicago in order to move up and select Champ Bailey. For their part, the Bears got Cade McNown, Dewayne Bates and Khari Samuel. Sorry, Chicago fans…
#107 was Nate Stimson
#179 and #218 were packaged and traded to Denver for pick #165. That pick was Derek Smith; Denver chose Desmond Clark and Billy Miller.
#2 in 2000 was Lavar Arrington, #64 was Lloyd Harrison.
So the net gain for Williams was a perennial Pro Bowl corner in Bailey (later traded for Clinton Portis) and an overrated supernova LB in Arrington, who had three good seasons before injuries ruined him. The other 3 players that never started an NFL game. The picks they subsequently traded produced a Pro Bowl tight end in Clark, an erstwhile contributor in Miller, and a crippling blow to Chicago, where the name McNown ranks above only Bartman in terms of Windy City sports ignominy. Washington won a playoff game in 1999 but did not make a return trip for the next 6 seasons.
Ryan Leaf to the Chargers: Hold your snickers please. The Chargers traded #3 and #33 overall in 1998, and the #8 pick in the 1999 draft to move up and take Ryan Leaf.
Those picks became Andre Wadsworth, Corey Chavous, and David Boston, respectively.
Wadsworth often gets overlooked, but he was nearly as big of a bust as Leaf; after a decent rookie year (5 sacks) he had just 3 sacks and 30 tackles in two more seasons before washing out of the league. Chavous flopped in Arizona as a corner (22 starts in four seasons) before finding his stride as an above-average safety in Minnesota. Boston had two very good years (out of 4) as a #1 wideout before steroids and injuries ended his career early. The Cards amazingly won a playoff game in 1998 but quickly fell back to being punching bags. San Diego never won more than 8 games in a season until 2004 when the trade below here came about. This deal is the worst case scenario for both sides of the trade. Read the rest of this entry » «The History of Trading Down»