Rick Snider’s Talk of Trading Chris Cooley Ruined My New Years

Well, Rick Snider just ruined my New Year with his story Redskins moving on next year without Chaos? 

“If the Redskins truly want a quarterback high in the draft, they’ll need to package something strong with their mid-first round pick. A Pro Bowl tight end [Chris Cooley] in his prime is a deal-maker.”

AAARGH!

Snider posed his story as a question and no where cites a team source in his washingtonexaminer.com story. But this long-time observer of the Washington Redskins wonders what comes next after Washington’s melodramatic season and reaches logical conclusion that Capt. Chaos is the only man on the roster worth multiple draft picks.

Says Snider, “Brian Orapko, Trent Williams and LaRon Landry are untouchables. Cooley is the only other person opponents want. Oh, the Redskins have some good players but nothing other teams can’t obtain through free agency.”

Hog Heaven won’t react to speculation as fact. Heck, we aren’t sure that Donovan McNabb is a goner on this team. (More on that tomorrow.) Let me preview my guttural blog post that will appear if the Redskins do trade Cooley in a reach for a quarterback.

Trading Chris Cooley is a bad idea because:

1. the move wouldn’t have been necessary if the Redskins hadn’t traded two draft picks for Donovan McNabb. Whose idea was that, anyway?
2. the move wouldn’t have been necessary if the Mike Shanahan hadn’t behaved like a jilted lover in his treatment of Albert Haynesworth. Fat Albert is a premier asset, which could have translated to premier trade bait if he had more playing time and no outward signs of contention between the coach and him. Yes, Albert made that difficult, but executives do not degrade the value of assets. Has no one on this team played “pass the trash?” That’s how we got Haynesworth, you know.
3. the quarterback the Redskins want might not be available to them, as this lengthy story on LiveBall Sports points out.  
4. a rookie quarterback starting on this team behind that line throwing to a receiver set that does not include Cooley cannot lead us to the playoffs. We’ve said about Jason Campbell, Donovan McNabb, probably Rex Grossman and (future rookie quarterback). Address the problems that need to be address first.
5. teams are built on players like Cooley. You draft them. You nurture them. You grow old with them. You win with them, just like Art Monk and Darrell Green.

Front offices have to play out all the possibilities, just as Snider does with his story. But trading Cooley would be the same type move that the Redskins are criticized for every preseason…and December.

But you didn’t read any of this here, because the Redskins haven’t made this move. If they do trade Cooley to position for a quarterback, well….