College Football gets to rule the airwaves here on Labor Day weekend. For the professionals the weekend is one for the Front Office personnel to decompress after the tumult of cut-down day. The churn of bodies to and fro is a dizzying sight from afar. From within it must be a maelstrom of moving parts. It’s all too easy to declare that the “Final 53” have been selected. Here’s a pro tip; the 53-man roster is never “Final.” There will be changes all the way until the end. Washington’s roster is not immune. This is a game where injuries and poor performances occur on a seemingly non-stop basis. Depth Matters. It matters more in this sport than most other team games. Accumulating top talent is a given prerequisite. But, building the depth is what holds the enterprise together.
Washington has built a roster with some unusual characteristics. Jason Reid, of ESPN said last year after the playoffs that Adam Peters was on the clock to assemble a roster around Jayden Daniels while on his rookie contract. Mr. Peters got the memo.
Sudden Success
Hollywood scripts that describe a situation like the WFT’s last year are routinely dismissed as not being realistic. Adam Peters was hired in January; hired a Head Coach in February; and then cashed in a Lotto ticket at the Draft in April. We all know the results of the actual football season. But, the foundations for that success were not exactly built to Code.
In the fan’s eyes football teams are built by the Draft with a sprinkling of Free Agents. In reality there is a balance between the Draft, Trades, and Free Agency. What Peters inherited was a landscape with few drafted players worth keeping. One can’t trade away what one does not have. And, he had precious little in the way of trade-able pieces. He did manage to trade away Sam Howell and a 4th-Rounder to Seattle for a 3rd and a 5th. (Howell is back in the Division with Philly; 3 teams in 3-years.) So, without pieces to trade Adam drafted 9-players. Then he signed veteran Free Agents en masse.
If asked to recall you might remember that the prevailing sentiment was that slender Jayden Daniels would get broken into pieces behind the poor Offensive Line in Washington. He didn’t. A lot of that was on Daniels himself. The scouts call it “Quick Twitch.” Daniels has it in abundance. He did manage to badly bruise or break a rib on a long run. (It was never reported as broken. There is a report out there that he admitted it was broken at a Madden media event.) But, otherwise and despite an untenable amount of sacks he came out of the season in one piece. Peters exhaled. Then he went after improving the O-Line hammer and tongs.
The Tunsil Maneuver
Adam Peters was in San Francisco as the Vice President of Player Personnel in 2020. Washington had a Hall-of-Fame Left Tackle who was on the outs with the organization. Trent Williams was dealt to the 49ers for a 3rd in 2020 an a 5th in 2021. A theft that large should be a felony. Williams was 30 at the time. He is big, strong, fast, and nasty…still. Five-years later AP went for the same formula: Get the stud Left Tackle. Laremy Tunsil was more expensive. Houston is not the dysfunctional mess the WFT was in 2020. He came to Washington with a 4th-rounder in exchange for a 3rd and 7th in 2025 and a 2nd plus 4th in 2026. If this was a Poker game a whole stack of chips went into the middle of the table.
Not done with the O-Line Peters grabbed Josh Conerly Jr with his First-Round pick. He now had stud Tackles to anchor the Line. If you haven’t seen Conerly Jr in college action he is in the clips below wearing #76 at Left Tackle. The guy he’s abusing is Abdul Carter, the Giants’ new shiny toy at #2 in the Draft. Carter wears #11 in white and a lot of Conerly Jr.
Of Old Guys and One-Year Deals
The old English Professor said that “Numbers are numbing.” It’s best to not throw numbers at readers in bunches. But, for this exercise it’s unavoidable. The goal of every team is to win the Division. That’s the automatic Playoff berth. Washington finds itself in the same Division as the second-best roster in the League; Philadelphia. Their General Manager, Howie Roseman is really good at what he does. So, let’s compare rosters:
Players over 30: WFT 21; PHI 7
Starters over 30: WFT 6; PHI 2
Drafted by the team: WFT 21; PHI 26
Drafted by the team in the 1st Round: WFT 3; PHI 6
Drafted by the team in the 2nd Round: WFT 6; PHI 6
Drafted by the team in the 3rd Round: WFT 2; PHI 4
Drafted by the team Rounds 4-7: WFT 9: PHI 14
Undrafted Free Agents: WFT 14; PHI 9
Players on One-Year contracts: WFT 20; PHI 17
Players reaching Free Agency in 2027: WFT 15; PHI 8
(Update) Starting Players Drafted by the Team: WFT 13 of 22; PHI 20 of 22.
That’s enough numbers for one sitting. If you skimmed over it, fine. Here’s the Cliff Notes: Every single category favors the Philly roster. What is not reflected in the numbers are the trades Roseman has made this year; twelve total with five of them sending a drafted player to another team. Washington has three trades total with only the Brian Robinson deal sending a drafted player elsewhere. Can’t trade what you don’t have.
Some Conclusions
There are three commodities in the NFL: Draft Capital, Salary Cap, and Trade Pieces. Peters inherited a friendly Cap situation while being bereft of Trade Pieces. Fortunately Ron Rivera had not traded away the Draft Capital. Peters’ answer has been to sign older players to short-term deals. When the team was winning with a bad Secondary he traded Draft Capital to get Marshon Lattimore in-season. To build the O-Line he traded more of it. The team only had five draft picks this year. It’s up to six next year. Peters knows that the more he can draft the better the outcome for the team in the long haul. But, he has this Rookie Contract Window thing going on. He has to have talent on-hand, not on a Draft Board. The approach, so far, has made sense. This is an ensemble roster if there ever was one.
The bad news is that Philly, with Dr. Nefario at the helm is not only sitting pretty, the future is really good also. While Washington has the 6-picks next year Philly has 14 with 5 of them being in the top-100; PLUS 3-Compensatory Picks. Upon seeing this one couldn’t blame Adam Peters if he turned to Josh Harris and said, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” It’s going to take a lot of Jayden Daniels magic to overcome that team in green for a while.
In football Front Offices a new GM rarely follows a person who excelled. Typically the new GM inherits a complete mess. Peters got the latter. Did he ever! Ron Rivera drafted horribly with a penchant for “Going Long” on the odds. Sometimes it’s the right play. Most often it’s not. And, it certainly is not a good Modus Operandi. Having Chicago pass on Jayden Daniels was a gift from above. The rest of the rebuild will have to be hand-shoveled from the dirt.
Updated to add Starters drafted by each team.
