A New Start! (the Reboot) The Front Office, Ownership, & Coaching Staff Thread

[TK]

A few things to consider.  

 

10 1st round picks under Hurney's watch : 

Cam Newton

Julius Peppers

Jordan Gross

Luke Kuechly

Jonathan Stewart

Thomas Davis

Jeff Otah

Jon Beason

DeAngelo Williams

Chris Gamble. 

8 of them are Pro Bowlers. 7 of them are All Pros.

 

So far no one has called asking about Kyle Smith.

[Riggo#44]

1 minute ago, TK said:

A few things to consider.  

 

10 1st round picks under Hurney's watch : 

Cam Newton

Julius Peppers

Jordan Gross

Luke Kuechly

Jonathan Stewart

Thomas Davis

Jeff Otah

Jon Beason

DeAngelo Williams

Chris Gamble. 

8 of them are Pro Bowlers. 7 of them are All Pros.

 

So far no one has called asking about Kyle Smith.

 

I'm sorry TK, but please don't bring logic and facts into this. Me angry. Me mash keyboard. Hulk hate stairs.

[seantaylor=god]

2 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

I'm sorry TK, but please don't bring logic and facts into this. Me angry. Me mash keyboard. Hulk hate stairs.

He sounds like a great hire. I’m sure all the teams who had open GM spots have been reaching out to him for interviews. He’s also been on the short list of top GM candidates from stable and enviable franchises for the last few years. And when he got fired, I bet another team snapped him up really quick. He’s definitely better (and younger!)  than other candidates out there.

 

I’m psyched! 

[Riggo#44]

1 minute ago, seantaylor=god said:

He sounds like a great hire. I’m sure all the teams who had open GM spots have been reaching out to him for interviews. He’s also been on the short list of top GM candidates from stable and enviable franchises for the last few years. And when he got fired, I bet another team snapped him up really quick. He’s definitely better (and younger!)  than other candidates out there.

 

I’m psyched! 

 

Ok, what's his role going to be?

What's Smith's role going to be?

What scouts are we keeping, who are we letting go? Who did they scout? What contributions did they make?

Who was Hurney responsible for drafting and signing in Carolina? What were the scouting reports he received from his staff there?

How many of those really great picks in Carolina were his?

What were his contributions other than personnel?

Who else are we bringing in to the front office? What will their role be?

What is the exact hierarchy and internal machinations of our current front office and how will that change with Hurney's potential hire?

[TK]

5 hours ago, HigSkin said:

This is kind of cool...

 

 

Oh goddamn! Football Team had been growing on me but that right there is MONEY. Smack a dome on top of FedEx to turn it into a wolf den/cave type environment & lets roll

[Riggo#44]

4 minutes ago, TK said:

Oh goddamn! Football Team had been growing on me but that right there is MONEY. Smack a dome on top of FedEx to turn it into a wolf den/cave type environment & lets roll

I've been on the Redwolves bandwagon for a while...like way before it was cool!

[TK]

2 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

I've been on the Redwolves bandwagon for a while...like way before it was cool!

So was I. But seeing that, you drop the Red so you don't have the legal issues with the college team & Washington Wolves sound just as good.  

[CapsSkins]

Just now, TK said:

So was I. But seeing that, you drop the Red so you don't have the legal issues with the college team & Washington Wolves sound just as good.  

 

I'm surprised there's a legal issue given how many names appear in different sports:  Panthers, Giants, Cardinals, Rangers, for a while the Oilers, etc.

[Conn]

Hurney in an advisory capacity along with the hire of another, qualified and proven GM would be perfectly fine with me. We can only react to the reports we’re getting, conditional to the narrative of the moment. I don’t think anyone would have an issue with the above scenario if a guy like Cowden is the big hire and Hurley is an advisor that he and Rivera both trust. That’s the type of spot where he belongs. The GM title and position, that’s another thing. 

[joeken24]

13 hours ago, Dissident2 said:

That would never happen, but ANYTHING that means Snyder is gone, I would be ECSTATIC about, even if that would lead to the fantasy scenario you suggest. It would still be utterly worth it for me. 

I am convinced there are more people out of the know and have bought into the narrative, than there are people that actually know what the **** is really going on in Ashburn. Just too many people like Joe Gibbs, Ron and Jason Wright that I’m sure aren’t putting up with the same guy the narrative says. Just sayin.

[RWJ]

I was hoping we'd get a late night/early morning tweet that our new GM was named.  We wait.  LOL

 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

13 hours ago, CapsSkins said:

 

We get an owner who institutes an internal salary cap below the current max cap (which happens frequently with owners in other sports) and people here would be clamoring to have Snyder back.

 

So damn true lol...

[Conn]

6 hours ago, joeken24 said:

I am convinced there are more people out of the know and have bought into the narrative, than there are people that actually know what the **** is really going on in Ashburn. Just too many people like Joe Gibbs, Ron and Jason Wright that I’m sure aren’t putting up with the same guy the narrative says. Just sayin.

How is this guy still fooling you? Really, tell me. It was literally only less than two years ago that he forced the Haskins pick on his FO and coaching staff and set this team back a ton. Stop being such a sucker. (That’s not even mentioning the “off-field” concerns we’re now dealing with that show what a bad guy he is). Rivera and Wright are only even here right now because he’s screwed up so badly.

[Thinking Skins]

I kinda avoided this thread over the weekend but I'm not going to either extreme right now. I'm not totally backing the (likely) move and not totally against it. I don't know what the organizational structure will look like in 2021 or what this ultimately will mean for Smith. I don't know what it will mean for our lower round picks or our FA philosophy. I just feel like there is so much unknown this offseason. 

 

My question about Hurley: Is he a football guy? Or if we do wind up seeing Smith leave are we going to be looking for somebody else to do the draft boards? Was he the guy in Carolina doing the draft boards? How likely is it that the guy we interviewed (Stokes) a potential replacement for Smith? How likely are other guys we interviewed from other teams? 

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[Skinsinparadise]

https://www.hogshaven.com/2021/1/18/22237846/what-would-the-hiring-of-marty-hurney-mean-for-the-wft-front-office

Washington Already Has Young Talent In-House

Intentionally or not, there has been much pot stirring in the local press to the effect that the team’s wunderkind Vice President of Player Personnel, Kyle Smith, “hasn’t been included” in interviews for Washington’s General Manager position. External candidates, like Martin Mayhew, Ryan Cowden, and Joe Schoen were all either interviewed or mentioned as top candidates. The reality is that none of them meet Rivera’s needs, listed above, and virtually all of them are no better than Washington’s existing, in-house talent in the personnel department. After all, Washington has had two of the best drafts in the league over the course of the past couple of years, and had a home run free agency crop in 2020 as well.

The lack of effusive praise for Smith from Rivera has fueled speculation that there’s some tension between the two, or that Smith’s “on his way out.” Given Smith’s performance, both in the draft and in free agency, that seems improbable to me, particularly when all reports from their collaboration last year were glowing, and indicated that the men were on the same page philosophically:

“One of the things that we talked about when I first got here was talk about a sustainable winning culture,” Rivera said. ”The whole idea about what we’re doing is we’re going to build this culture with the guys that want to be here, the guys that want to be a part of what we’re doing so we can go forward, and just feel good about where we are.”

Smith later doubled down on that approach.

“Since Coach showed up here, we made it very clear that, as an organization, anybody that has a year left on their contract we’re going to wait and see how you mesh with the coaching staff,” he said. ”And I think that’s pretty fair, personally, that, out of respect for the player, let’s see how we jive, let’s see how we mesh before we extend somebody for four years or three years or whatever the case may be.”

 

My suspicion is that Rivera had a frank conversation with Smith - whom he had just promoted earlier in the year - towards the end of the season indicating a few things: 1) Rivera felt he needed a General Manager to take on some of the larger roles of the position; 2) He didn’t think that Smith was ready - yet - to do that, but that he could be, eventually; and, 3) He was very pleased with the job Smith was doing in his VPPP role, and wanted him to continue to focus on those responsibilities.

Surely, I’ll be accused of “wishful thinking” for promoting such speculation, but it’s what I honestly believe to be true. I also believe it’s why he wasn’t singing Smith’s praises from the rooftops just as a quarter of the league was beginning its search for a new crop of general managers. There’s no need for public plaudits when private assurances of confidence have already been given.

In the event I’m incorrect, and that, for some reason, the relationship between Rivera and Smith is irretrievably broken, Rivera clearly believes he has additional young talent in his front office in the form of Eric Stokes, the team’s current Director of Pro Personnel.

Stokes got an interview for the GM position, which could potentially be a prelude to a promotion to VPPP or Asst GM, should Smith end up leaving. If Smith stays, the interview does Stokes (and the team) the favor of getting a young front office talent onto the radar’s of 31 other NFL teams. A move that could pay future dividends.

Likely Next Steps

It hasn’t been announced yet, but it could potentially be announced as early as tomorrow that Hurney has been hired as the team’s next General Manager.

I would expect that, concurrently, we will learn one of two things (in order of likelihood): 1) Kyle Smith has been promoted to Assistant GM and will remain the primary point of contact for the draft and free agent evaluations, and that Eric Stokes has been promoted to backfill the VPPP role. Or, 2) That Kyle Smith will be leaving the team after the draft to pursue an Assistant GM role elsewhere (LA Rams, SF, etc), and that Eric Stokes is being promoted into the VPPP role.

One way or another, the personnel evaluation component of the traditional GM role will stay in-house with young, developing front office talent, and Hurney will become an additional, experienced voice in the collaborative mix, and a trusted sounding board and right-hand-man for Rivera, carrying out his directives, and potentially providing additional buffer from the owner.

He also becomes an important part of grooming the young talent within the organization for their eventual roles either as future General Managers in Washington or elsewhere. Under the circumstances, it seems like a pretty sensible plan of action.

Poll

 

 

 

 

[Est.1974]

Hurney on his own would be disappointing. With Cowden as well, great.

[method man]

Ughh. Just as we started having some hope

[UK Skins]

On the name thing briefly, I hate Redwolves (what the hell is a red wolf anyway??) but Washington Wolves is pretty kick-ass. Especially if they keep the current colours and uniforms like in that picture. You could have a wolf howl when we score and as TK says have some sort of wolf den theme. Alliterative names are always neat too 😎

[KDawg]

1 minute ago, method man said:

Ughh. Just as we started having some hope

Wouldn’t overreact yet. We don’t know his role. If he’s a tie breaker (and an unbiased one) and overseer of the day to day ops stuff it’s fine. He has experience.

 

If we lose Smith I’ll be a bit more worried. But Hurney seems to know top end talent as well. So hopefully the Rivera/Hurney/Smith triumvirate works together.

[Skinsinparadise]

That tweet is how I see it.  Russell was explaining yesterday how overwhelmed Rivera was as to handling adminstrative duties last year which apparently there are a ton of when you are the GM.   And he'd call Hurney and Beane just about every day to ask questions about how to do this or that.

 

I don't really have a strong opinion on Hurney one way or another.  But in the case of Dan as I've said multiple times I actually like the idea of having dudes that Rivera is close with.  Rivera doesn't come off like someone like Bruce where his goal is mainly self preservation.   If Bruce loses his job, he's likely done.  Just like Cerrato was.   

 

If Dan cans Rivera he'd find another job fast.  My point is I do think he's an all hands on deck type of guy as to wanting to win.  Jason Wright who seems honest as heck said Rivera likes people who challenge him and who aren't yes men.

 

I frequently work with people I've worked with before.  They are far from yes men to me.  They challenge me.   But the fact that they have my back to my client/boss helps especially in cases where the boss/client isn't the easiest dude to work for. 

 

 

 

12 minutes ago, UK SKINS FAN 74 said:

With Cowden as well, great.

 

For me that or it keeps Kyle Smith.  That would be my prime want.  

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

I don't take the Hurney move as self-preservation for Ron and can acknowledge that history of being able to work with the GM is of importance, while at the same time feel the move is lackluster and uninspiring.

[actorguy1]

I'm also in a wait and see attitude. I believe that the Hurney hire will be more of a business side/admin role with either keeping Kyle or hiring Cowden as the head talent evaluator. 

[boston skins fan]

If its Hurney as GM no chance cowden comes over.  It would be a lateral move.  That would mean smith stays and maybe gets the AGM bump. 

 

If Hurney comes as senior advisor or vp of football ops cowden slides in as GM and smith as Agm.

 

 

[Skinsinparadise]

Listened to a Carolina reporter just now.  He likes him.  He said he's a good people person.  Has hired good people including Brandon Beane who became the Bills GM.   He's into the personalities of players as to evaluations. 

 

He talked about how he can be hands on evaluating players, talked abut how he fell in love with Jeremy Chinn.  He gets props for me on that one, he was one of my favs predraft.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Skinsinparadise