Snead on His Willingness to Trade/MMQB[
www.si.com]
• Snead on his willingness to trade more than his predecessors, and on the willingness of a cadre of young GMs to do the same: “You know, that’s an interesting question, and to start with, I don't think you can ever be reckless because—let's go way back to 2012. You know we traded the No. 2 pick overall to the Redskins that ended up being known as the RG3 [Robert Griffin III] deal, but the whole purpose of that was to acquire as many draft picks as possible. We got to build a young core because at that point it’s nearly, let’s call it 26 players of the 53 who finished on that 2011 Rams team never played in the NFL again, so you knew we had we had to replenish this with a good core, and over the years you draft it, but last year we tipped into let's call it being a “legit contender.” So at that point, you’re well aware, wait a minute, we want to sustain this, we want to keep contending. And, I’ll always say this, I got a simple rule: You can't be scared in this league. Look at Doug Pederson this year and, it wasn't reckless but it took courage and guess what? They won a Super Bowl on some of those fourth-down plays. So you try to do that as a general manager, but I also think, and this is long-winded answer, some of the analytics that you have now to really look at what historically draft picks bring you in reality over time …”
Me: “You’ve basically looked at draft choices as tools in the toolbox. That's how I kind of look at your thing: You’re not wedded to your draft picks.”
Snead: “Right. You should be my interpreter.”
