The Commanders’ Turnaround Came Even Quicker Than They Expected

This, of course, starts with having the second overall pick, and landing a quarterback who is authoring one of the greatest rookie seasons a player at his position has ever had. That, of course, goes a long way toward making it work at other positions where you may be short.

But there’s a lot more to this story, which, in some ways, was actually accidental.

When the team-building process began, and the roster looked like it was a million miles away from a day like this particular Sunday, no one was thinking about microwaving a Super Bowl team. The idea for a short-staffed personnel department—Peters, assistant GM Lance Newmark, senior personnel executive Martin Mayhew and senior vice president Rob Rogers were running what felt like a start-up—was to lay a foundation for the future.

That started by defining what Quinn and Peters wanted in a Commander, regardless of position, which became their north star. As one staffer described it, it’s “a great competitor, great teammate who’s loving football and putting the team first.” They, of course, felt like they could find that on tape in a player’s play style, and the violence, aggression and physicality he played with.

But in assessing whether a guy has those traits, there is usually some guesswork involved. So the Commanders used the staff they had to take the projecting out of it, as best they could—and given who they had on staff, there was a they could do.

Anthony Lynn vouched for Ekeler, whom he coached as a Charger. Quinn himself and Joe Whitt Jr. knew exactly who Dorance Armstrong, Dante Fowler Jr., Noah Igbinoghene and Tyler Biadasz were, coming from Dallas, and Quinn coached Bobby Wagner a decade ago in Seattle and Olamide Zaccheaus and Mykal Walker in Atlanta. Kliff Kingsbury had Zach Ertz in Arizona. Shane Toub had a relationship through his dad, Chiefs special teams coach Dave Toub, with Nick Allegretti, and Nick Bellore was with special teams coach Larry Izzo in Seattle.

It spilled over, too, into the holdovers—where Quinn and Peters leaned on assistants from Rivera’s staff, like Bobby Engram, to make decisions on bringing Jamison Crowder, Jeremy Reaves and Cornelius Lucas (with Reaves becoming, in many ways, a bellcow for Quinn’s program) back for 2024. Peters’s own history showed up too, in the arrival of ex-Niners Sheldon Day and Clelin Ferrell (Ferrell played for DL coach Darryl Tapp in San Francisco).

And then, there were Frankie Luvu and Jeremy Chinn coming over from the Panthers. They were the two eliciting the greatest league-wide response (as the texts to Peters’s phone indicated it, anyway) as free agency was ongoing in March, and those two, you could argue, have had the biggest impact of any of the veteran additions. They represented, without any Carolina people on staff, probably the biggest leaps of faith that Quinn and Peters made.

But even in those cases, Peters could leverage his relationship with ex-Panthers GM Scott Fitterer, who was taking some time off after Carolina let him go in January, to try and ascertain their fit. Fitterer, by the way, was hired by the Commanders after the draft.

Of course, all of this wasn’t automatic.

It did, though, give the Commanders some certainty.

Newmark ran point in unifying the coaching and scouting staffs to form a singular vision, building relationships, leading and executing deals. Mayhew’s background with Peters and the organization was key. And Rogers worked tirelessly to hammer out the right contracts.

Which, in the end, helped fast track Peters and Quinn—who didn’t really know each much before their arranged marriage—to meshing philosophies and bringing in the guys.