Don’t do it, Josh. Assume in another way, Adam.
That is nothing towards Quinn, the previous Atlanta Falcons coach and present Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator. (However did you see the final information level on Quinn’s résumé? That may be 415 yards and 48 factors coughed up at residence within the playoffs towards the Inexperienced Bay Packers. Yikes.) It’s nothing towards Raheem Morris of the Los Angeles Rams, Aaron Glenn of the Detroit Lions and even Mike Macdonald of the Baltimore Ravens — all achieved defensive coordinators, with Macdonald’s star notably on the rise.
However the first teaching rent of Harris’s tenure occurs to return with unusual alignment throughout a wide range of fronts: The brand new proprietor bought to handpick the particular person to run his soccer operations division. Peters now has a partnership with Harris to handpick their coach. That coach, importantly, may have a say in whom the Commanders will take with the second decide within the draft. That decide virtually definitely would be the quarterback round whom the GM and coach will construct their roster.
Dominoes line up this manner about as usually as Mitch McConnell and Elizabeth Warren exit for beers. What it means: The Commanders ought to rent an offensive-minded coach to mould and form the quarterback who will — fingers crossed — be the centerpiece of this rebuild.
“We’re on the lookout for one of the best chief for this staff, for the Washington Commanders,” Peters mentioned this month when he was launched, his solely public feedback since taking the job. “And so we now have set standards that we’re going to have it’s aligned in that imaginative and prescient. And it’s not going to be in a field. It’s not going to be offense. It’s not going to be protection. It’s going to be one of the best chief for this group.”
That’s completely the way in which to current this search. It’s additionally then okay to assemble your group, solid a large internet and say, “Tie goes to the offensive man.” At the very least.
This isn’t as a result of solely 4 of the 14 head coaches on this 12 months’s playoffs had been former defensive coordinators. It’s not since you simply ousted Rivera, a former linebacker and defensive coordinator. And it’s not that defensive coordinators can’t make good head coaches even in a league that consistently thirsts for extra offense.
Shoot, a 12 months in the past, DeMeco Ryans was the San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator. He simply completed reworking the Houston Texans from a staff that owned the second decide within the draft into one able to reaching the playoffs — and profitable a sport as soon as it was there. That strategy can work.
However to make it work in Houston, Ryans needed to get the offensive coordinator proper. That he did — in selecting Bobby Slowik, then a 35-year-old offensive assistant in San Francisco — is a credit score to Ryans. It says right here, although, that handing rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud and the complete offensive operation to a first-time coordinator took, um, guts. That it labored out is nice for Stroud, nice for Ryans and nice for Slowik, who now’s garnering curiosity as a head teaching candidate. Nonetheless, it was a threat — and now that it succeeded, Slowik could possibly be gone after a single season.
That threat isn’t price taking in Washington. Among the many candidates the Commanders have interviewed is Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, only a 12 months older and with another season as an offensive coordinator than Slowik. As a result of the Lions are within the NFC championship sport, Johnson can’t be interviewed in particular person till subsequent week, so the method with him is on pause for now. (Effective. Fill the void by speaking to Quinn.)
There’s a lot interesting about Johnson, whose Lions ranked third within the NFL in yards per sport and yards per play and fifth in scoring. Sure, what Peters mentioned about management needs to be right. Johnson has to have the ability to reveal to Harris and Peters that he might create an setting by which he enabled and impressed everybody within the locker room and on his teaching employees to get one of the best out of their talents. Perhaps he flunks that a part of the examination. In that case, look elsewhere.
But when that field is checked, then how is he not the rent? In three seasons with Johnson — the primary when Johnson was the Lions’ passing sport coordinator, the previous two when he was the coordinator — Detroit quarterback Jared Goff upped his completion share, elevated his landing throws and lower down on his interceptions in contrast together with his time with the Rams. That’s actual development, and the Lions are taking part in for a spot within the Tremendous Bowl due to it.
When was the final time this franchise had a coach lined up with the quarterback he needed? Joe Gibbs, who drafted Jason Campbell? Perhaps. Jim Zorn, bless his coronary heart, then inherited Campbell. Mike Shanahan had Donovan McNabb foisted on him by proprietor Daniel Snyder, then watched Snyder commerce as much as take Robert Griffin III. Jay Gruden swiftly grew pissed off with Griffin and turned to Kirk Cousins. Yeah, that pairing produced statistically profitable seasons, however the franchise by no means dedicated to Cousins for the long run, and within the draft heading into his last season Gruden was being instructed he needed to take Dwayne Haskins.
Rivera inherited the late Haskins for his first season, however due to the pandemic he had no probability to judge him within the offseason. He subsequently turned to Alex Smith, then to Ryan Fitzpatrick, then to Taylor Heinicke, then to Carson Wentz, then again to Heinicke, then to Sam Howell.
That’s fairly a report. Time to purge all of it.
Peters has already outlined the concept of getting an aligned imaginative and prescient all through the group. On this case, that has to increase from proprietor to GM to educate — to quarterback. Dan Quinn, Raheem Morris, Mike Macdonald: high-quality soccer coaches, all. However not for this staff at the moment. The brand new head coach ought to define a brand new offensive imaginative and prescient and be liable for serving to choose and develop the staff’s first true franchise quarterback since … without end.
