Normally, an executive leaving a company he was hired by within nine months would be cause for concern – but in announcing Tuesday that Eugene Shen, hired by the Commanders in October, was leaving the organization, the team said Shen is ‘in discussions to support other HBSE initiatives.’
That acronym is Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, aka the parent company Josh Harris owns along with his sports teams – so is this cause for concern, or just a ‘thanks for the help here, time to move divisions’ kind of project-based thing?
“He was hired before Adam Peters, which didn't make a ton of sense to me, but before everyone kind of goes, well, that was a terrible hire, he was probably heavily involved in the trade deadline, I would think,” Grant said. “Remember when they didn't have football people but they were making big decisions, and they ended up trading Chase Young and Montez Sweat? They might have needed someone to crunch some numbers and tell them what value was and what everything looked like and build some databases in that regard for them.”
Grant referenced all of the new hires and front office restructures announced Tuesday afternoon, including Doug Williams becoming a senior advisor to GM Adam Peters, and surmised what it seems like is the plan: new SVP of Football Operations Brandon Sosna takes over analytics, and Shen moves into a different role within Harris’ world.
But that said…
“That is interesting. I remember Sashi Brown, who was a basketball guy, then a football guy, then was with the Wizards…sometimes these analytics guys hop from lily pad to lily pad,” Danny said, “but it's hard for me not to connect Jason Wright looking and Eugene Shen moving all within a period of a pretty short amount of time. I have no idea if they're directly related, but I guess that's my point, is moves are being made.”
“The highest-ranking media relations person in the entire building, like if you want to talk to Josh Harris, you call her, she was no longer with the team as of this week, right?” GP replied. “So my point is that right now, as they're going on their breaks before training camp, this is when they are finalizing staff changes, formalizing titles, it seems like, and making moves in that regard, and there’s some moving and shaking here. This is normally what happens post draft with scouting departments, but what makes this notable is that Shen was a pretty popular hire because it was an indication they were gonna care about analytics. I don't think this is going in the opposite direction because they've hired other people, but when you hire someone and a big deal is made about it, it’s interesting.”
Even if it’s benign.
“This was a nice little bit of shining light because we're going, ‘oh my God, they give a damn about some of the numbers and data and things that other teams have been using to run laps around them for a decade,’ instead of Bruce scoffing at analytics and saying it's for nerds or whatever, or Ron Rivera quoting the analytics of football,” Danny said. “This was a good sign, but because Eugene Shen is moving doesn't mean they've abandoned that; they've got a bunch of people in that department, and it will get its proper attention.”
“The timing was also just strange; to hire him before you hired a GM didn't make a lot of sense, unless he was brought in almost exclusively to get them through last year and the trade deadline,” GP replied. “I guess I would kind of get that, but otherwise, if you're Peters, you're going, ‘I'll pick my own analytics guy, thank you.’ It’s like hiring a coordinator and then telling the coach this guy's gonna answer to you. I don't know if I want that, and clearly Peters didn't love it.”
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