Let’s Think About the Future A.T. (After Trent)

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August 6, 2019

by Steve Thomas

Since we’re well into week 2 of The Great 2019 Left Tackle Holdout, I thought about filling this column with another opinion piece about Trent Williams – what the problem really is, what he should do, what the team should do – but we’ve had quite a bit of that already, haven’t we?  In fact, I already wrote a column like that a while ago (click here to read) as did my colleague Eric Hill (click here to read), and many others.  Instead, with the marriage between the Redskins and Williams in counseling, with divorce lawyers now hovering around waiting on the word to file dueling petitions, it seemed like a more productive use of both my and your time to take a peek at the Redskins 2020 options for a post-Trent era.

Before we get too much into this, it’s entirely possible that the parties work something out and Trent returns to work.  This is what I think needs to happen:

Assuming it doesn’t (which seems like the most likely result at this point) though, the Redskins will need to find a new left tackle.  This year, with all due respect to Geron Christian, that’s probably going to be Donald Penn, but he’s 36 and not a long-term solution regardless of how he does this year.  Christian is obviously young and could get better, but to date has not shown the potential to be a big-time starting tackle. Realistically, there’s not much else the Redskins can do this year short of an out of left field trade that somehow lands a new quality replacement.  A trade could happen, but the idea of a young starting tackle coming back seems unlikely.  Therefore, if Williams leaves, the team will probably have to wait until after the season to really solve the problem.  I’m not going to speculate on a trade, because I’d only be guessing, but what we can do is take a look at the possible left tackle free agency targets and the 2020 draft class.

Free Agents

Next year’s free agent class of left tackles is pretty thin, but there are a couple of options worth a discussion, at least.  First, there are two big names coming on to the market who aren’t realistic options: Andrew Whitworth with the Rams and Jason Peters with the Eagles.  Both players are old by football standards, 38 and 37 respectively, and certainly wouldn’t solve the Redskins’ problem on a long term basis.  Penn is 36, and while he might work out for this year, he doesn’t represent the future either.  In my very rough, done without watching any film subjective order of rank, here are the rest:

D.J. Humphries, 26, was the first round pick of the Arizona Cardinals in 2015.  He’s spent the entirety of his four year career thusfar in Arizona.  During that time, he played only 27 games as a result of injuries, but started every contest, initially at right tackle before moving to the left side.  Of course, during this period, the Cardinals had the worst offensive line in football for some of this time, just about ruining quarterback Josh Rosen’s career, so whether Humphries could effectively replace a 7x Pro Bowler is an open question.  Granted, he is young, which is why he’s at the top of my list, but it’s not an open question.  He can’t.

Greg Robinson is just 28 years old.  He was the second overall pick in the 2014 draft by the Rams, who subsequently declined his fifth year option and allowed him to move to Detroit.  The Lions waived him in November, 2017.  Robinson then spent 2018 with Cleveland. As is the case with Humphries, it seems unlikely that Robinson will ever approach Trent’s level of play.

Kelvin Beachum, 30, was a seventh round pick by the Steelers in 2012 who has played in 91 games, starting 86, mostly at left tackle.  He became Pittsburgh’s starting left tackle midway through the 2013 season and held that position through 2015.  He declined an extension offered by the Steelers to move to Jacksonville for the 2016 season.  His time with the Jaguars didn’t go well, and he signed with the Jets for 2017 and 2018, where he’s been a full-time starter. He’s 30 years old, though, so he’s a stopgap at best.

Matt Kalil, 30, the fourth overall pick by the Vikings out of USC in the 2012 draft, was highly celebrated at the time.  He was selected to the 2012 Pro Bowl after Trent Williams infamously got hit in the head with a bottle in a night club and had to bow out of the game.  Kalil spent five years in Minnesota, then signed a five year, $55M contract with the Panthers in 2017.  Carolina released him this past March.  Kalil then signed a one year deal with Houston for the 2019 season.  It’s highly unlikely that Kalil can re-create the magic at this point, at least enough to replace Williams. He could be another stopgap if necessary.

Anthony Castonzo, 32, is the long-time left tackle of the Indianapolis Colts.  He was draft in round one in 2011 of Boston College.  Castonzo was played and started 116 games in his career.  He’s certainly a viable starter right now, but his age eliminates him as anything more than another temporary fix for Washington.

Cedric Ogbuehi, 27, was drafted in round 1 of the 2015 draft by the Bengals out of Texas A&M. He’s played in 35 games in his career, starting 25 at both right and left tackle.  The Bengals declined their fifth year option and Ogbuehi signed a one year deal with Jacksonville for 2019. He doesn’t scream “franchise left tackle” either.

As you can see, unless something drastic and unexpected happens, nobody who is scheduled to become a free agent is likely to become Washington’s next great in their long line of franchise tackles.

The 2020 Draft

As is the case every year, there will be a number of potential franchise left tackles in next year’s draft.  I’m not going to pretend to have studied any of these players at this point, because it’s way too early yet for that, at least for me.  However, these are the names who are, in some order or another, on the board right now as the top draft eligible tackles in 2020:

Trey Adams – Washington

Alaric Jackson – Iowa (LT)

Walker Little – Stanford

Trey Smith – Tennessee

Andrew Thomas – Georgia

Tristan Wirfs – Iowa (RT)

These are the guys who at this point are expected to be the highest drafted tackles next year and who you should therefore keep an eye on in the coming college football season if you want to get a preview of the next potential Redskins left tackle.  Obviously, there’s no guarantee that any of these players will be on the list come draft time, but this is where things stand for now.

The sad fact is that 2020 was probably when the Redskins were going to start thinking about Williams’ replacement regardless of his holdout.  It’s possible that the parties will still work on a solution, and if so, the answer will likely involve adding another year or two to his contract (because, in my humble opinion, this entire issue is ultimately about money; feel free to throw tomatoes my way).  If that happens, then none of the players I’ve mentioned here will be Redskins and we can address this issue again in the 2022 offseason.  At this point, though, unless Geron Christian takes a massive leap forward in development, it seems more likely than not that Washington’s next tackle is listed in the “draft” section above.  Stay tuned for the drama.