Back in March of 2012, the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective produced a detailed quantitative analysis of the trade Washington made to move up and draft Robert Griffin III with the second overall pick. At that time, after crunching numbers and using sophisticated mathematical equations and terms like eCAVOA -- and producing charts I lacked the advanced statistical background to fully grasp -- they reached several prevailing conclusions, which I do vividly recall:

“For the Redskins to get the equivalent value from RGIII as they spent acquiring him, he must produce at least as much as Tom Brady.”

Let that sink in a for a minute.

And this was the final paragraph of the analysis:

“Regardless of the rationale behind this move, the Redskins lost a tremendous amount of value in this trade, potentially setting the team back for years. If RGIII does not pan out -- whether because of talent or injury -- Washington would be left with no quarterback and no first round draft picks for the next two years. Regardless of RGIII’s future, the Redskins lost about as much expected value as the Falcons gave up last year to acquire Julio Jones. While RGIII will bring excitement to Washington, the conclusion here is clear. This trade was a bad move by the Redskins, and one of the worst moves in recent history. Vintage Redskins.”

Um, they nailed it. They nailed it before it had even become official (recall Griffin’s name wasn’t even called out at Radio City Music Hall until that April). You can read the entire piece here, though I’d caution Skins’ fans it may be too much to bear.

What a colossal waste. And, given the history of this franchise during Snyder’s reign, it’s not the least bit surprising. Of course it was going to end in a ridiculous fashion. It always does. What’s really changed? What ever will?

It takes a village to raise a quarterback and it takes only a few powerful and misguided individuals to waste one (said empowered quarterback included), and the collective mismanagement of RG3 has the Skins back in a familiar position under Dan Snyder -- insignificant laughingstocks who lack any plan or vision for success, with a roster in disrepair, starved for leadership, last in their mediocre division again.

Griffin will be tossed aside for good this offseason, with the Redskins lucky to get a late-round pick for an asset for which they traded so many picks to acquire -- the 6th and 38th overall picks in 2012, plus two future first-round picks, to name a few (it's worth noting that the Harvard author brought up the inherit danger in the Falcons' move for Jones, too, which has much to do with that team's woeful state as well and has their coach, Mike Smith, on the verge of the same fate that befell Mike Shanahan in Washington a year ago). Keeping him around would be asinine even by their standards, and for the second straight year they have zapped whatever real trade potential he may have once had.

For the second straight season a coach has concluded that Griffin isn’t worth seeing on the field in December. A year ago it was Shanahan calling Snyder’s bluff, revealing all the flaws in the owner’s beloved, privileged pet, daring his boss to fire him if not outright begging him to do it. Now it’s rookie coach Jay Gruden, riding the prevailing thought of upper management that Griffin is now beyond repair, who is opting to go with Colt McCoy, a backup barely viewed as being worthy of a roster spot most places, over the player this team mortgaged its last three drafts to select. (And how about Kirk Cousins not even being worth a look, either, their fourth-round pick in 2012; they got literally nothing out of Shanahan’s third draft there other than Alfred Morris. Other than Morris, the only "proven" commodities from Shanahan's drafts are Trent Williams and Ryan Kerrigan.)

To say this has set the franchise back years, however, is to do a service to their ineptitude. They are perpetually set back. They are always stunted. It’s more like the Skins just being the Skins. This is how they do. To say it will set them back implies there is some ideal of sustained winning that they actually might have achieved otherwise. It implies there is a future for them that somehow wouldn’t be overwrought with dysfunction and power plays and failure. Based on all the empirical evidence to date of the SnyderSkins, on and off the field, where is that notion coming from?

I’ve been writing this column, more or less, since 2004 when I started covering the team for The Washington Post, and these issues had dogged them long before then. There is no independent, strong, capable and proven talent evaluator in a position to make authoritative change. It’s either been football operations run by a pseudo-GM, or an established coach who lacks personnel acumen at the top of the football operations pyramid being given far too much control (Joe Gibbs, Shanahan) who are ultimately undone by their own deficiencies in roster building.

If you believe that Bruce Allen fits that above description (independent, proven, etc.), then, I’m sorry, you are a fool. He is the guy to maintain a tight budget and oversee your cap and yuk it up with all the agents. He’s your guy to do the chicken dinner circuit and try to convince old alumni that Redskins Park isn’t toxic and polluted. He is the salesman to make pitches to corporate sponsors about the connections to the past -- which included winning -- because there is nothing of note to sell in regards to the present or the future.

He is the man to help you get a practice bubble built and to coerce Richmond government officials into getting the sweetheart deal of all sweetheart deals to get a training camp facility built. He’s probably the guy to help you eventually do the same with some downtrodden ward in Southeast D.C. to eventually get that retractable dome built that will make you tons more cash and host Super Bowls for other teams to hoist their Lombardi Trophies in. Allen is all of that. What he cannot be is the top decision-maker in all aspects of football operations who is always willing, able and available to get a nudge, or a shove, from the owner.

Robert Griffin III and Dan Snyder in happier times. (Getty Images)
Robert Griffin III and Dan Snyder in happier times. (Getty Images)

Maybe one day Snyder will have a general manager and/or coach who doesn’t want to be wined and dined, who doesn’t want to party in Aspen or recline on a yacht in Cannes or ham it up at the Country Music Awards or whatever. Though you have to doubt it, with Allen now playing the role Vinny Cerrato did for so long, an eager enough foil who can take some of the criticism and blame and give Snyder the cloak of there being some separation between ownership and management.

Maybe one day the Skins will have a locker room that is not undermined and divided by the haves and the have nots, without the owner playing favorites and offering special treatment to them. Maybe one day there won't be a sickening star culture in which one player is trotted around with the owner in the offseason, shows up at award shows with him, comes over to the house for holidays. Maybe one day coaches won’t be undermined by that special player’s ability to go straight to the owner’s office whenever he wants, to get whatever he wants. Maybe one day there won’t be a different set of rules for one player or players, and that guy won't have carte blanche to flaunt the need to practice or get medical treatment like everyone else.

Maybe one day it won’t quickly turn bad, real bad, with that once-infallible player, bringing down the organization along the way, as it did when LaVarr Arrington or Clinton Portis lost their preferred status, and as is happening now with RG3.

Until it does, this is what you have. This is who they are. Two of the primary masterminds of the RG3 trade and subsequent bungling of the roster -- Snyder and Allen -- remain in control, without any semblance of checks and balances, doing whatever they want, keeping the personnel department more or less in the dark, and continuing their systematic destruction of the once-great franchise.

Griffin, scheduled to make $3.3 million, will go somewhere else, and, still just 24, maybe there is something for someone to salvage even with his physical gifts not nearly what they were before all the injuries and with his psyche and confidence just as damaged. (Could you imagine Chip Kelly, right in the NFC East, picking him up as a developmental project? How surreal would that be?)

And Snyder and Allen will draft someone else, I’m sure, finally no longer beholden to surrender any more draft picks to the Rams. Maybe they’ll sign someone too. I recall how smitten Snyder was with Mark Sanchez -- Kelly’s potential free-agent quarterback -- entering the 2009 draft, how much the Skins tried to move up to draft him, ultimately losing out to the Jets, who jumped to fifth overall to draft him. And you just know Dan’s watching his revival closely up the road in Philadelphia.

So, Skins fans, maybe that’s your solution. How does that sound? Hail To The Sanchize? I don’t have the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective numbers to back me up on this, but I’d say there’s a 99.3 percent chance it ends up as another beautiful disaster.