As you can imagine, Grant & Danny also opened their show Monday reacting to the big news of the day, Ron Rivera being fired and Josh Harris setting up a committee to help him in his search for a new regime.
"It is a new day for the Washington Commanders now that the move is official," Grant said. "And what is truly official now is it's day one for the Harris group to put their fingerprints on this organization, after they sat and watched and evaluated this season – and at some point weeks ago, they closed that notebook and decided to move on, and now they have."
"They came on too late in the process to do anything lickety-split, despite how many of us had slammed the gavel on this regime," Danny replied. "This was inevitable, and yesterday felt emblematic – there were some good things happening, enough to keep you coming back, and then you look up and you're down 28 late in the fourth and everything feels inept. And now it really begins, and this is the first step of the rest of our lives as Commanders fans. It feels like a new day, with legitimate reason to hope."
And part of the reason for that hope is because, as G&D later said, Josh Harris 'hit a home run' at his post-Ron press conference, and has a chance for a grand slam this offseason.
"This is the whole deal now for Josh Harris; you have to hit a home run this offseason, because you only get one crack at setting this thing up right," Grant said. "It's rare that in one fell swoop, a new owner can come in with your Mount Rushmore of new positions: owner, GM, head coach, quarterback. Really, a golden opportunity for Washington."
"Yeah, and it really is your first impression. They've done some things behind the scenes and tried to make fan experience better, but this is the 'we are now able to put our stamp on the organization' impression," Danny replied. "This is our first real act of football business here. Now you can begin to build, and these critical decisions are all coming up in the same offseason."
Grant noted how Harris saying 'it's hard to win four games' showed his hand at how he felt about this season being a disaster, and how it's really hard to actually be that bad.
"You have to try to figure out as many of the lessons as possible and put those in Sharpie, because you really don't want to make those mistakes again," Grant said.
Learn, but also don't be too patient?
"I like that Josh Harris is a patient person, but I don't know that's for everybody," Grant said. "Ted Leonsis is willing to be patient with basketball at times, has gotten some heat for just keeping things status quo because people think it gets stagnant. Harris has the ultimate process with Philadelphia, which has basically worked, and a lot of times in these press conferences, an owner basically says what people want to hear – but he talked about doing things the right way, which I liked. I think that reserve that you can show is healthy and worthwhile."
"For the most part, you want patience, you don't want to react after a terrible moment out of anger. That's Snyder-y – but I do think there's a balance needed," Danny replied. "With Leonsis, I always felt like he was tryting to prove he was smarter than the average fan – but sometimes the fans are right, too. You can't fire a coach or cut a star over one moment, but over the long haul when something is unacceptable, you can make a move. But in general, I want reserve over reaction."
So, what can Harris learn from the first year on the job and the end of the Rivera era?
"I would love for them to avoid at all costs the coach-centric model; I have seen Jim Harbaugh linked or the Bill Belichick suggestions, but those are the types of guys that would demand control," Grant said. "My number one lesson post Rivera is you can't do that, and they're conflicting if done correctly."
"I co-sign that, no more stupid structures, but number two, as evidenced by all the platers tiptoeing around this Eric Bieniemy thing…I call it not having cohesiveness," Danny said. "You're going to have arguments among alpha males, but when Rivera's passing the buck to Bieniemy and running him under the bus, it set the stage for infighting and someone else to blame.
We can't do that anymore."
