Will Adam Peters be the NFL Executive of the Year?
“He certainly deserves attention for a good draft class, incredible free agency acquisitions, and getting the quarterback spot right, at least out of the gate,” Mike Tirico told Craig Hoffman Thursday. “I think one of the cool parts of this season to me is that out of nowhere, Olamide Zacchaeus and Jamison Crowder had the biggest catches of the year in Week 16, right? That's depth of a receiver room, but it's also because you can't let Terry McLaurin score down there, so somebody's got to step up. It’s Crowder, who dealt with a calf all year, and Zacchaeus, who ironically, is a former Atlanta and Philly guy, sees his old teams here in back-to-back weeks. That’s what I talk about when I say Adam should get some conversation for executive of the year. I think it'll probably be Brad Holmes in Detroit or maybe Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in Minnesota for what they've built this year, but when you look at what this team was, all the acquisitions, the draft, where it's gone, how guys have contributed, it’s great.”
The above was borne out of a conversation about how Terry McLaurin, who was ‘the one really special piece’ the Commanders had, is now thriving in this system, which is good for everyone involved.
“I remember sitting with Terry a year or two ago and talking to him about that whole search for the big-time quarterback to match his receiving skills, and now, people have to notice because it's 1,000 yards and 12 touchdowns, right?” Tirico said. “It’s one of those career-high, franchise-record type seasons, but he had always put up the 1,000-yard seasons, but CeeDee Lamb and Ja’Marr Chase get more attention, because those guys have had big moments and huge seasons with winning teams or teams that were going to the playoffs. Now Terry will be in that spotlight, and he will continue to get the attention and even more when you do it in a game like Sunday night, when you do it in the playoffs.”
What Peters has done, though, along with Dan Quinn and the coaching staff, is add to McLaurin and a couple other good pieces and build a team that had quickly coalesced into a contender – but it’s taken a buy in from both above and below to do it.
“It’s hard to take a cruise ship and pivot fast, and NFL franchises are that size, because of the spend and the reach and all of it. It’s really hard to take a franchise and turn it around quickly, and it requires multiple really good hires in key spots,” Tirico said. “For the most part, the best franchises have alignment in the four most important chairs: ownership, GM, coach, quarterback. And you’ve gone from question marks in a lot of those places, and Ron Rivera not having the people around him and all that, to really solid, good people in each of the four big chairs, and it's turned this cruise ship around quicker than it should have, and it’s great. And then the stadium stuff on the back end of that, the fans wanting to be part of this all good energy, in a year where Boston and New York and Chicago and Dallas are giving us nothing when it comes to good football, it's great to see Washington be extremely relevant, and that's great for the league and great for all of us.”