Commanders GM Adam Peters was very clear in multiple answers to questions Grant & Danny posed when he joined the guys from the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday: when it comes to free agency, the draft, and anything else, every decision will be ‘what’s best for the franchise.”
“We just finished up some great meetings with the staff, looking to identify the types of players we want, so we have a great vision of what we’re looking for heading into (the offseason),” Peters said. “We’re building that synergy and collaboration throughout the building.
Oh, and here’s your key point when it comes to re-constructing this roster: Peters said it verbatim that ‘we will always be a build through the draft team,’ so ‘it won’t be a big spending spree’ in free agency.
“There are a lot of holes we need to fill, but we will always build through the draft and supplement through free agency,” Peters said. “This year, it won’t be a big spending spree; we're not going to go out and blow all that money in year one. We're going to build a competitive team with the right types of guys, then have a great draft after that. We will find the types of players we want to build our team, supplement them with people that can really make us very competitive this year, and then draft really well to build competitive team.”
Peters has said that the Commanders were unlikely to use the franchise tag, something he told G&D was “a year-to-year decision depending on who you have coming free and where you value them,” but even with close to $80 million in cap space, some of the guys they want to bring back just may not be in the cards as part of that non-spree.
“One of the big parts of this week is meeting with agents for all our free agents, and we’re open to bringing a lot of guys back, depending on how everyone fits into the big puzzle,” Peters said. “There are some players we’d like to bring back, and maybe some we can’t for whatever reason.”
One thing we also don’t have to worry about, though, even as Peters says there won’t be a spree: this regime, unlike the previous one, won’t be “stuck on the dollar menu” of free agency, as GP put it.
“There’s nothing wrong with the dollar menu, man!” Peters joked. “We’re going to be good at finding the right fits. Our job is to look at every avenue to make this team better and do what’s best for our team; it takes a lot of different players to build a team, so wherever we find that, we will look through all avenues and make the best decision. We hav $10 more million than we thought we would when we forecasted the cap, but every team has that, so it doesn’t change things too drastically – we will still look to find the right guys to fit our program, but maybe we can fit another one or two in.”
So overall, what kind of player is it they’re looking for?
“You don’t really know until you get into it, but with DQ and the way we talk, the type of mindset we’re looking for, you see it on the tap and in their physicality and aggressiveness,” Peters said. “This staff is very creative with what they can do with players, so there’s no cookie-cutter mold.
You see what Dan did with Micah Parsons in Dallas – we’re trying to find the players that fit and that they can put in positions to succeed.”