Here is what you need to know on this Tuesday, December 19, five days before the Washington Redskins play the Denver Broncos at FedEx Field.

Timeline

Today’s schedule: No media availability

Days until:



—Redskins @ Giants (12/31) 12

—NFL free agency starts (3/14/18) 85

—NFL Draft (4/26/18) 128

How little draft position can mean

Let’s do a little exercise. Here are six pairs of NFL players. From each pair, pick the better of the two.

TE Eric Ebron or LB Ryan Shazier

G Chance Warmack or S Kenny Vaccaro

DE Tyson Alualu or DE Jason Pierre-Paul

CB Stephon Gilmore or LB Bruce Irvin

RB Todd Gurley or RB Melvin Gordon

QB Blaine Gabbert or C Mike Pouncey

In my opinion, it's clear that Shazier, Pouncey, and Pierre-Paul clearly are the better than the players with whom they are paired. Warmack and Vaccaro were neck-and-neck the first few years of their careers, but Warmack hasn’t played much in the last two years, giving the edge to Vaccaro. Both Gilmore and Irvin have been pretty good; I’d lean towards the pass rusher but it’s basically a coin flip. Gurley’s breakout this year puts him above Gordon.

Why did I pair these particular players together? The player on the left in each pair was the 10th pick in a draft between 2010 and 2015 and the one on the right was the 15th pick in that same draft.

This exercise is for the benefit of all of you who are wringing their hands over the possibility that the Redskins will win one or two of their final games and “screw up” their draft position.

Too much can happen to figure out exactly where the Redskins might draft but eyeballing the standings right now, it looks like the highest they could pick in the first round is 10th, and the worst they could fall to is about 15th.

Looking at the players picked 10th and those who went 15th, it really doesn’t seem to be very important where you draft in that range. Of the six pairs, the lower pick is better in three of them and clearly inferior in just one. It's a matter of scouting and, to an extent, luck rather than a few spots of draft position.

The moral of the story here is that fans shouldn’t sweat a few spots in the draft. Maybe if you are really bad and those losses will get you the rights to a sure-fire franchise quarterback, those few spots from losing might make a difference. But the Redskins aren’t in that position so just enjoy the wins and let the draft position chips fall where they may.

Stay up to date on the Redskins. Rich Tandler covers the team 365 days a year. Like his Facebook page Facebook.com/TandlerNBCS and follow him on Twitter @TandlerNBCS.

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