Grant Paulsen couldn’t wait until 2 p.m., when he and Danny Rouhier take the airwaves on 106.7 The Fan, to vent about how bad the Commanders’ loss to the Dolphins was – so hours earlier, he called in to talk turkey with the Junkies!
There was a lot to be miserable about on a Misery Monday, but the first thing was Danny’s Tweet yesterday calling himself out for predicting a Commanders run a few weeks back.
“I think what he expected was basically history to repeat itself because since Rivera's been here, they've gotten off of these awful starts and then gone on these kind of empty calorie runs,” Grant said. “Everyone's felt like maybe there was some momentum going into the off-season only to have the same thing happen again, so he called his shot, but it does not look like that run is happening this year.”
Indeed, and in Year 4 of Ron Rivera’s tenure, the fact things are actually getting worse doesn’t bode well for the future of more than a few folks in the building.
“It’s a mess, and what you're seeing at this point is that when you're that bad in the draft and in free agency for this number of years in a row, this is the result,” Grant said. “You can't be swinging and missing in free agency and in the draft incessantly, and that's what they did. It’s pretty clear that they can't do this as a front office and the end is near at this point. They’re going to make the obvious change the day after the season ends and they're just playing out the string at this point, but this was a fact-gathering mission in my opinion for this ownership group. They were taking notes as they went, but the notebook is closed. They know what they need to know and there will be a new GM and a new head coach coming in here.”
As proof: in discussing Jay Gruden’s Tweet piling on Rivera Sunday, Grant called Terry McLaurin, Jonathan Allen, Daron Payne, and Montez Sweat “the four best players” on the team entering this year, and, well, one is gone, one is underperforming, and NO ONE else has stepped up.
“I think their four best players were guys Ron inherited; all those guys were here when Rivera took over as GM, and after four drafts and four off-seasons, as of about six weeks ago, I would have told you they were the four best players on the football team,” Grant said. “This idea of culture and growth and all this, it's fine; are they more respectable? Possibly. Do people in the building feel better to work there? Maybe, because the tyrant Dan Snyder is gone. But Ron Rivera was brought here to win football games, and he isn’t.”
And it seems that in Grant’s eyes, as he went on about the front office’s awful moves all around, that even Eric Bieniemy, who could’ve been the savior of the offense, isn’t safe based on the production of his lone offensive star.
“McLaurin was catchless for the second time in his career, and he is averaging four yards per catch fewer this year than last year,” Grant said. “It’s insane that in the first year in Bieniemy’s offense, he’s on pace for career lows in yards per game and yards per catch. I watch other games, and it shouldn't be that hard to just involve your best players, and they're doing a really bad job at it.”
Eric Bickel then posited that maybe the team should trade Sam Howell, and even McLaurin, if there’s a rebuild coming, because they need as many assets as possible, especially if they plan to draft another QB at the top of the draft for the next regime – and while Grant doesn’t agree with dealing McLaurin because he can be a key piece, he does agree with trading Howell, and other vets, too.
“Right now they pick fourth, and I think they’ll pick five or six, so the only oter guy in consideration is Jayden Daniels,” Grant said. “If they’re in the market for a QB, I’d agree with you on trading Sam. My take is consistent that he’s proven he can play in the league as a starter, but 90-plus percent of the time, when a new coach and GM come in, they want to pick their QB. Are people really telling me that Howell is so special, he’ll be the rare guy who survives and is built around? I think it’s unlikely, and you probably can get some decent value by trading him and adding a veteran to back up the young guy.”
And that goes back to the Bieniemy thought – because after seeing the Commanders play back-to-back Top 10 defenses in Dallas and Miami, and seeing the Commanders be a +31.5 bet at one point during the game, GP is conflicted.
“They’ve scored a combined 25 points, and yesterday, Howell completed 52 percent of his passes and had a season low in completions, attempts, yards, and yards per attempt,” Grant said. “I got to a point with EB after their three-game heater where I had really come around on him; I had found him to be too slow to adjust to help the QB, because his whole job as a coordinator is to avoid the things your team your guys are bad at and they weren't doing it. Then they got on the heater and I thought he was really accentuating his best players and came around to thinking he could do this – but I knew these two games would be stiff tests, and to say they have failed them is an understatement.”
So, he summed it up this way:
“I don't know how anyone could watch this offense this year and say, like you have to make him the head coach, or this is a special thing. Like, no chance,” GP said. “That doesn't mean he should be precluded from conversations, he’s in his first year doing it, but when I watch other teams, they look so different and so much more dynamic. I have high standards – like, I want Terry McLaurin to catch a ball! – but even if he’s still hurt, it’s not just him. Jahan Dotson doesn’t really get involved, Logan Thomas didn't catch a pass yesterday…there’s just too many games like this, or where you kick a field goal to avoid getting shut out against Buffalo, or you score seven against the Giants and get sacked 96 times. I’ll give you one or two of those a year, but it shouldn't happen once a month.”