The pre-Scot McCloughan Redskins are a fascinating juxtaposition against the team currently operating out of Ashburn, Va. And the release of Andre Roberts on Tuesday is a small footnote in Washington transactional folklore, but it's still an interesting demarcation.

Roberts was signed back in March of 2014, netting a four-year contract worth $16 million. That's far from the biggest signing in Redskins offseason history, but it was also contract featuring 50 percent guaranteed money for a slot guy coming off a down year with the Cardinals.

Part of the logic behind signing Roberts was adding to a depth chart that featured Santana Moss, Pierre Garcon and Leonard Hankerson without having a first-round pick as a result of the Robert Griffin III trade.

And that's where the juxtaposition comes in. Look at the pre-McCloughan receiving corps in Washington. Moss was homegrown but Garcon was a ridiculously expensive free-agent acquisition (who has a $10 million cap hit coming in 2016 -- stay tuned on that one).

DeSean Jackson hit the free agent market when he was released by the Eagles before being inked to a deal by Washington averaging $8 million a year. (Jackson's availability came shortly after Roberts was signed, which didn't exactly help the receiver when it came to his place on the depth chart.)

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Andre Roberts is looking for work after being waived by Washington. USATSI

Jackson, Garcon, Josh Morgan and Roberts all qualify as high-profile free-agent signings, most of whom featured above-market dollars.

With Roberts gone and Garcon/Jackson in the final years of their contracts, it wouldn't be surprising to see a wholesale change on the wide receiver depth chart by 2017.

Look at the difference too: Jamison Crowder fills the Roberts role, catching 59 passes last year as a rookie. Taken in the fourth round out of Duke, he signed a four-year, $2.8 million deal.

The Redskins dipped back into the wide receiver pool in the draft this year, taking Josh Doctson out of TCU in the first round. He is not dissimilar to Garcon, although he's younger and, of course, cheaper. Doctson's entire contract is about the equivalent of Garcon's 2016 cap hit, not including the fifth year of control (at a minimal cost considering he's 22nd overall).

If Doctson pans out and Crowder continues to develop, the Redskins are going to have an array of young weapons moving forward, with Jordan Reed inked to a five-year contract as well. Losing Jackson's straight-line verticality would be tough, but it's hard to imagine them signing him at the age of 30 to a big free-agent deal.

Instead they could simply invest more picks in the position moving forward and suddenly have an abundance of cap space freed up by quality positional asset allocation to be used on other big-ticket items (hello Kirk Cousins contract?).

It's the smart way to build a team and another reason Redskins fans should be pumped for the future of the franchise.