There are two camps on the Ron Rivera era in DC: one that gets louder every time a 2020-23 pickup or draft pick fails, and one screaming back at them to get over it already.
Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier were, are, and always will be in the former, if their thoughts on the day the new Commanders regime released 2021 first-round pick Jamin Davis is any indication.
“Some people will love everyone; you could hire me or Darris as defensive coordinator and they'll tell you why we're going to be awesome as long as we wear the right colors,” Grant said. “I don't play that game. I'm a critical thinker, and I can't just get in line and clap like a seal – but I will tell you that when I look at that draft history in 10 years, it'll still piss me off.”
Rivera made eight picks in 2020, and all are gone, and even if you chalk some of that up to “all but Chase Young would’ve been free agents by now,” Davis’ departure means half of the 10 2021 picks are gone, half of the eight from 2022 are also gone (although Cole Turner is on the practice squad), and of the Class of 2023, we have the top two players picked on the team, the bottom two on the practice squad, and the middle three elsewhere.
In baseball, 11 of 33, a .333 average, might be a Hall of Fame number, but it sure isn’t in the NFL.
“There’s a difference between an inexact science and not being very good at it and very obviously having no clue – and they had no clue in that building,” GP said. “We had to sit here and watch it for four years, and a lot of us knew it every step of the way. I want that time back; I want energy and effort and money and some of the voice that I lost that I'll never get back into this microphone. What a stupid operation this was for so long, with no proven general managing chops in the building, and just being told that the poop was fertilizer and the wet stuff was rain. SO frustrating.”
“You know I hold grudges and I don't forgive very well, but a big part of it for me about wanting to revisit it is when I said so at the time, oh, did I catch some flack,” Danny replied. “Whenever I'm correct and I get screamed at, and I don't get my apologies? Everybody who ever said anything when I was like, ‘this is the incorrect pick,’ which it was, I was correct then and then the next day I was walking around just correct, all the days from that day till this just strutting around I was correct – I’m wrong all the time, and when I am I say so, but you were all wrong. Everybody who raised their voice at me, put a finger up or did a crying emoji or whatever the hell you were doing, I want that. So that’s why I revisit it.”
Forget the draft as a whole, because Days 2 and 3 can be crapshoots, but the fact that at least three of Ron’s four first-rounders didn’t make it to the end of their rookie deals in DC is ‘embarrassing’ and says a lot.
“It’s so maddening that that's the bill of goods you were sold for some time,” GP said, “and that run in the first round is SO embarrassing. I can give them a little grace on Chase Young, because they could have gone QB, but every analyst thought he was the real deal – the pick was bad because Washington didn’t have a QB, but I can work myself into a frenzy if we do this.”
“I need the professionals who are paid to do that to know before I do, whatever it is. They get millions to do the job effectively, and when I can say ‘that’s wrong’ and then however much later, it turns out I was right? That can never happen,” Danny replied. “That’s reprehensible.”