We know the Commanders can’t “officially” interview anyone currently holding a position with an NFL team until Monday, when 18 teams see their seasons end and 14 get ready for the playoffs, but surely, they have had at least internal discussions about candidates to be their next GM and head coach.
Well, actually, John Keim reported this week that according to sources, they have spoken somewhat formally to Ian Cunningham, the Bears’ assistant GM, and Raiders interim GM Champ Kelly, as both were at the NFL Accelerator Program seminar Josh Harris attended at the NFL Owners’ Meetings – a program that introduces owners to up-and-coming minority candidates for executive positions.
Cunningham was a long-time Ravens staffer, and Baltimore is a pretty good model to emulate, and that part of it makes Grant think that even though you can’t ‘legally’ do things until Monday, he knows conversations have been had somewhere.
“I have talked to an agent of a coach before who said that they've known almost every time they've placed a coach with a team that they knew if their guy was going to get the job or not before the interview,” GP said. “Now, that does not speak well to the Rooney rule and some of the things, but my point is they almost viewed a lot of the interviews and stuff as formalities. Now, maybe that's a little overstated, but I say that to say I think they have an idea, maybe not of exactly who it’s going to be, but I bet they started with a huge net that they casted and there's a couple of names left that they're gonna finalize – and it almost has to be that way.”
Given the football calendar, GP says, you have to start your search process as early as possible – i.e., once you know it’s a possibility of a change – to be able to ensure you at least have a chance with the guys you want, so in his mind, the Commanders are ’85 percent done.’
“To your point, until this new ‘legal tampering period,’ free agency started at 4 and at 4:02, an agreement has been made – no one hammered out contract language in two minutes,” Danny said. “A good friend worked for an executive search firm, and years ago, they worked on something so massive that they had to cast a wide net; all of these interviews and conversations and introductory things are had early, and THEN the search firm comes back with, ‘here's your top 5 or 10 candidates,’ whatever you want to narrow it down to.”
And yes, as Grant said from knowing the league, agents are talking to teams, especially agents of candidates that have been candidates before, in a ‘not happening publicly’ way.
“Talking to the agent and getting a feel for the candidate, knowing what kind of money they'd be looking for the, the title they're looking for, what kind of staff they'd be able to surround themselves with, who they might be able to bring with them, what their vision is for how the department would work, who they would want to hire as their head coach,” Grant said. “These are all things you could be figuring out over the last several weeks, so you should be able to whittle this thing down to a couple of options for what are the quote-unquote initial interviews that are actually, to me, the final stage of this thing.”
Take a listen to the entire conversation above!
