Quote:
In a series of rapid-fire moves, this is what happened next: The New Orleans Saints traded all six of their picks this year and first- and third-round picks next year to the Redskins to trade up to the fifth spot and grab Williams.
The Redskins then moved back from the 12th spot to No. 7 by swapping first-round picks and added four picks in the deal with Chicago to move up and take Champ Bailey, the player they wanted to take at No. 5.
The Bears dropped down to the 12th spot, got the four extra picks and selected quarterback Cade McNown, the player they would have taken in the seventh spot.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xp ... story.htmlObviously the Ditka trade is an outlier - I assume nothing even remotely close to that has never happened since. A dumbass thing to do even if Williams ended up being great. New Orleans' pick in 2000 ended up being no 2 which Washington used on LaVar Arrington. Washington also had the no 3 pick (to have #2 and #3 - crazy) which they used on Chris Samuels. Perhaps Pace secretly admires Ditka's GM skills.
I'm not sure about Washington - who just added seven picks thanks to dumbass Ditka - trading four picks to Chicago to move up five spots. Obviously they struck gold in the HOF'er Champ Bailey but just thought the price was steep.
Chicago seems to have benefitted the most in the short term thanks to Ditka. Move back five spots and pick up four more picks. Of course I'm writing this from the perspective of 1999. In hindsight they picked a bust at 12, we all know that. At the time, though, seemed like a good deal. Washington though by picking up five 1999 picks and two picks next year (one of which ended up being #2 overall) seemed to benefit most overall.
And all of this may have never happened had Indy not surprised everyone by picking Edgerrin James over Williams.