During Wednesday's show, JP Finlay posited that the selection of the next GM will be THE most important move Commanders ownership makes this offseason, and named San Francisco's Adam Peters and Baltimore's Joe Ortiz as two possible names of executives on the rise to look at.
A segment later, though, as he and the producers discussed whether or not the coach or the GM should come first and/or is more important, JP again implored to start from the top down.
"Maybe it's just having been so close to this for so long and being kind of around the league, but unless you have the exact right coach, if you don't have the right organizational structure, nothing's gonna work," JP said. "Here, we've seen bad structure, bad coaches for a while, since Jack Kent Cooke owned the team."
JP had mentioned Parker and Ortiz as maybe that guy, and then went through some more names – including a guy Eric Bieniemy knows in Kansas City's Mike Borganzi and 'division rivals' in Brandon Brown of the Giants and Dallas' Will McClay, among others – but had one other name in particular he thinks "can really fit the bill, at least as far as how Josh Harris has built his other teams with perhaps a little bit of experience."
"This wouldn't exactly excite me, but it makes sense to me and I could see this happening: Rick Spielman, the former GM for the Minnesota Vikings," JP said. "He was GM in Minnesota from 2012 to 2021, and was 87-72 and made the playoffs four times with an NFC Title Game in 2017."
Of course, there are some knocks.
"I think he made a bad hire when he fired Leslie Frazier to go to Mike Zimmer, and then stuck with Mike Zimmer for far too long," JP said, going into Zimmer's issues before continuing: "But, what Spielman did drafting wide outs – Stefon Diggs and Justin Jefferson I would point to immediately – and Danielle Hunter…those teams have been pretty damn good up there."
Oh, yeah, and don't forget Kirk Cousins.
"Kirk made a documentary about his free agent process, and it showed how buttoned up the Vikings' process was to get Kirk to sign; they had the money ready and they wowed his family, like jerseys for the kids and a collar for his dog, and it just seemed like a really professional outfit under Spielman."
Maybe he's not the guy to win a Super Bowl, JP said, but he may be the football version of the Sixers' Sam Hinkie, ready to "trust the process" and start the rebuild.
"Josh hired an experienced person to rebuild everything, and then they went to Daryl Morey," JP said. "I think Harris is either going to hire an experienced GM or an experienced coach, and I think I'm more willing to roll the dice on a good young coach. I don't hate it."
The NFL is making a push to get minority candidates into front offices, and as JP noted arlier in the discussion, Josh Harris was one of the most active owners at the NFL's Accelerator program to introduce minority candidates to owners, so Spielman doesn't fit that bill – but JP thinks "they're going to look far and wide to try to get this thing solved."
