The Commanders selected Jayden Daniels No. 2 overall and turned over a very large chunk of the roster to begin the Adam Peters/Dan Quinn era…but was it enough?
In an NFL where CJ Stroud and the Texans may have spoiled the image of a rebuild for every franchise going through one, one can wonder if the Commanders simply didn’t stack enough talent around their new QB for it to happen sooner than later.
Not Brian Mitchell, though.
“Most people would say no because they expect the talent to be finished this year, but I think you can't do it all in one year. It's virtually impossible to do it all in one year,” BMitch said. “I believe that they're looking at this thing where they're trying to build and they're looking at it and going in incremental steps, so based off of that mindset, they do. Based off of the mindset of most fans, where they want to look at other teams around the league like Miami, Kansas City, and San Francisco, they didn't just start this this year, they have everybody they need – but you can't expect our team to automatically be where those other teams are, and I think that's where the angst comes from. They can start making moves before this year is over to start putting our QB in the place to where like they talk about competing on a regular basis in the second or third year, but I wouldn't expect it in the first year of a rebuild.”
“I look at it like when LeBron left Cleveland, he said he needed pieces around him – and ever since that moment, the notion of pieces around a player, I feel like that really kind of exponentially came into the sports conversation and has just continued and continued,” JP replied. “But dude, Nico Collins is a good player, but he was a 450 receiving yards guy, and CJ Stroud showed up and he went for 1,300. I don't know that the Bears put the best offense around Justin Fields, right, but it was this, ‘oh my God, they've thrown him to the wolves.’”
Of course, Kansas City lost their No. 1 player not named Mahomes and has been a perennial Super Bowl team, so it can work both ways if the right talent is what’s being built around.
“At some point, you just have to get the best out of the players you have,” BMitch said. “There are players not taken in the first two rounds who are kicking people’s asses around the league. When a guy is drafted, no one comes in with a name; you have to produce to build a name, but we don’t give that a chance anymore. We want people to hit the ground running, and it doesn't happen all the time. I'm not asking you to wait, but since this is a complete new organization, and they have said that they're going to be trying to rebuild, give them at least four games, and then you go where you want from there.”
But specific to if there enough talent around Jayden?
“They did trade back and people believe in Brandon Coleman, and believe in McCaffrey and Sinnott to evolve into players, and of course Terry’s there,” JP said. “They didn’t believe Dotson would do much this year so they traded him, but Kliff is a big believer in Ertz, and people wouldn’t say argue they didn’t do enough at the running back position. So I don’t want to be overly dismissive – of course you’d love to add 2008 Randy Moss to this offense – but how do we know?”
Listen to the entire conversation above!
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