With the matter of the Washington Football Team’s newly restructured front office resolved, the Burgundy and Gold’s brain trust is now able to turn all of its attention to the hottest question surrounding the team: Who is going to be the WFT’s starting quarterback next season and in the years to come?
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Following a 30-minute introductory news conference with coach Ron Rivera, new — but not so new to the organization — general manager Martin Mayhew and executive vice president of player personnel Marty Hurney, some answers about Washington’s quarterback position have come into clearer focus.
Such as how Hurney was so impressed with Taylor Heinicke, the fourth signal caller to start a game last season and a restricted free agent, that he brought him up twice unprompted. And when asked about Kyle Allen’s future and factoring into the team’s plans for 2021, Rivera said the exclusive rights free agent has been doing a great job with his dislocated ankle recovery and that “Kyle is somebody that most certainly is part of what we’re doing right now.”
All right, so that would appear to indicate the backup quarterback spots look to be neatly resolved, but we already suspected as much. And that’s not what people are going to be discussing these next two or three months. Who is going to find his name penciled in at QB1 when that first day of offseason work begins and unofficial depth charts start flowing out?
Will it be Alex Smith, who Mayhew emphatically said should be the NFL’s comeback player of the year award recipient, after he went 5-1 as a starter in 2020, nearly two years after his grotesque broken leg injury? That remains up in the air, as the new front office was just returning from the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., last week and is continuing the evaluation process. They’ll discuss it among themselves, and then among the players, but there are larger conversations to be had and, as all three said, all options remain on the table.
So let’s talk more broadly. We know what Rivera and offensive coordinator Scott Turner think makes for a franchise quarterback — they discussed that during the season. But what thoughts do Mayhew and Hurney have? Remember, when these two were general managers at previous spots, they selected franchise quarterbacks in former Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford and former Carolina Panthers signal caller Cam Newton with respective No. 1 draft picks in 2009 and 2011. So, what are they looking for this time around?
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“I’ll tell you, that’s the most important position on the football field, really, so you’ve got to have football intelligence to play the position,” Mayhew explained. “You’ve got to have the arm talent. The leadership ability is really important. One of the most important things, I think, is the football character. That’s all the preparation that goes into it; that’s understanding the game; that’s being mentally tough; that’s having passion for it. All of those things are required in that position. You really can’t cut any corners there. You’ve got to really be a complete football player to be successful there.”
Said Hurney: “You look at his skill set. You look at his techniques. You look at how he’s gotten along with his teammates, what his teammates have said about him. Again, the guys we have on the roster right now, you hear nothing but complimentary things about all of them. The bottom line is, just like an organization, the quarterback is really the lead piece for you as far as your offensive system goes. He’s very important to winning football games.”
Beyond those intangibles, Mayhew stated that another key component is finding a quarterback that fits in Turner’s offense. They’re not just bringing in a big name, handing over millions of dollars or a robbery heist of draft picks in a trade, to generate buzz around town. Fans in Washington have seen that song and dance one too many times, so they’re beyond that.
“I think what you want to do is make sure you target somebody that fits what you want to do offensively,” Mayhew said. “Then, you have to have a guy that has all those traits that we talked about earlier in terms of the leadership and work ethic and all those kinds of things. The most important thing, I think, is to have somebody that’s going to come in and be able to lead the team and be able to win games for you. I don’t believe that there is a line. I think you want to be smart, but you want to be aggressive in that process. That’s kind of what our plan is right now.”
Luckily, one of the things Rivera and his staff showed some real know-how on was identifying players who were on the precipice of success, who could do well if given a little more action on the field and who could immediately fit into what they were trying to build in Washington. Some players didn’t work out, such as Sean Davis, nor did some initial moves, like giving Geron Christian and Wes Martin starting roles on the left side of the offensive line. However, this was a staff that wasn’t afraid to look at its own decision-making and concede it made the wrong choice.
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So bringing in Hurney and Mayhew to help in that process this offseason figures to be a plus. They’ve known each other since 1989, when Hurney was in public relations in the front office and Mayhew was a player, and talked at different points about how they unintentionally found themselves agreeing with each other early in this union. Add that Mayhew has known Rivera for eight years through various diversity initiatives and that Hurney worked with the coach for five seasons in Carolina and there’s a great deal of familiarity among the top three football decision-makers.
When asked to further expound upon what kind of quarterback would fit in Turner’s offense, Mayhew said good question but no dice. Smith and Allen fit the system very well, he said, but it wouldn’t be advantageous to describe “who we think is an ideal fit.”
“One of the beauties of what we do offensively is we’re not stuck on one particular style of play for our quarterback,” Rivera said, echoing words he said during the season. “If you look at what we’ve done in the past, Scott Turner has been part of a mobile quarterback situation that we have, a pocket-passer type of situation that we have. We can go quick stuff, we can go dropback stuff, so we’re not stuck on one image; we’re stuck on the right kind of person, the right kind of player for us as far as that’s concerned.”
Rivera said the team would be “aggressive” in assessing the position but not so gung-ho that it leverages immediate gains for long-term and consistent success. That would seem to preclude, say, throwing multiple draft picks at the Texans in pursuit of Pro Bowl quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has asked for a trade.
“You want to be aggressive, but you do not want to mortgage the future,” Hurney said. “Again, this is a team game. As important as that quarterback position is, you have to have people around him. You have to have an offensive line to protect him. You have to have skill players. It really does. You can’t isolate one position, although it is an extremely important one. All the traits Martin said, and I think you take one decision at a time, you make one good decision at a time, and go from there.
“Again, I think it’s one day at a time. If you look, Alex Smith was 5-1 as a starter. We all saw how Taylor Heinicke played in the playoff game. First, you start with evaluating your roster. Then, you look at the quarterbacks that are out there. A lot of times it’s all about timing in the draft, what position you’re in and who’s out there available. Again, it comes down to currency. It does come down to where you are. Can you protect the quarterback? Do you have weapons for him? So, there’s so much that is included in that process that it’s going to take much longer than the week and a half that we’ve been here.”
None of the three would say what they thought of the Lions’ trade of Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams for Jared Goff, two first-round picks and a third-rounder, other than both teams got what they wanted. Nor would they disclose what they’re willing to deal in a trade or players they’re entirely opposed to unloading in a blockbuster swap. As Mayhew explained, he’s found during his time in the league that teams are less likely to do business if one openly discusses the scenarios it’s likely to entertain or would go for.
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“What I think as far as the quarterback — every position on the football field, you’re always looking to be as good as you can be,” Mayhew stated. “That’s the priority. There’s a lot to talk about, a lot to discuss and a lot to evaluate. … We’re going to look at everything and see if there are opportunities to improve our roster. We’re going to go about it that way. Is it going to be this year? Is it going to be next year? Whenever it is, we’re going to get the right guy.”
Could bringing in another veteran as a bridge quarterback or exploring that option be ideal?
“In our current situation, yes, it is,” Rivera began. “But at the same time, you don’t want to necessarily mortgage your future. You don’t want to take away the opportunity to continue your growth. We’ve done some really good things in the last few years, bringing players here. Last year, I thought our coaches did an excellent job as far as getting our guys in position. So, going forward, I think the future is going to be bright if we do it the right way.
“I think the biggest thing, as they both said, we’ve got to make sure we find the right one. That’s the key. Is it imperative to find the right guy now? No, not necessarily. We would love to, but as we go through this process, we’re going to exhaust all avenues. We’re going to take nice, long looks at every option we have out there that’s available to us. We’ll go with the one we think is best for us going forward. Would I like to find him? Absolutely. Are we in a hurry? No. We want to make sure we do this right and we get it right.”
This entire quarterback search is going to be about looking at all of the possible, foreseeable and, if possible, potential unforeseen pitfalls of bringing in the next guy. Whether it’s through a trade, free agency or the draft, Washington doesn’t commit so much to the position, as important as it is, to the detriment of the other holes it still needs to fill.
There’s still the matter of not officially knowing next year’s salary-cap numbers, though estimates exist, not knowing the resolution of four-time Pro Bowler Brandon Scherff’s impending free agency, knowing that other notable starters are eligible to hit the market in a little more than a month when free agency opens — and, of course, not knowing how the 2021 NFL Draft will play out.
If the team can bring in the “guy” this offseason, Rivera has some questions that need to be resolved before he and the new front office make that move.
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“You may get what you want from the individual, but as Martin said — and it’s something that we talked about a long time ago — if you do have your franchise quarterback, can you protect him?” he asked. “Do you have enough playmakers around him? I’d hate to go get a franchise quarterback or have a franchise quarterback and not have enough tools in place to make him efficient. It’s interesting because you talk about some of these quarterbacks that are out there right now, a lot of people go, ‘Oh, wow. Look what he’s done.’ But then you say, ‘Yeah, but he hasn’t won a lot.’ Well, that’s because he hasn’t a lot of tools around him and there’s reasons why. One of the reasons I don’t want to get into why is I don’t want to see us get into a situation where we can’t put playmakers around our guy, we can’t protect our guy. That’s something that we’ve got to make sure we can do.”
(Photo of Alex Smith: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)