The Washington Commanders have the most impactful decision any franchise can make awaiting them on Thursday night as the first round of the NFL Draft kicks off.
While the Commanders wait to hear the news all of us expect to be uttered from the mouth of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, that the Chicago Bears are selecting USC quarterback Caleb Williams to lead their franchise into glory or continued struggle, general manager Adam Peters will no doubt be giving his pick one last look – if even just in his own mind.
When Goodell steps to the microphone to announce the first pick Washington makes in the NFL Draft it’ll be a quarterback. Which quarterback? We don’t know that right now. In fact, we don’t necessarily know when that quarterback will be drafted as Peters admitted to taking phone calls about trading out of the No. 2 pick as recently as late March.
Washington Commanders general manager Adam Peters says the team, “feels great,” about picking at No. 2 in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
After his pre-draft press conference, however, it seems we may know now that the Commanders – and Peters – will be sticking with the second pick, and making their own franchise-shaping decision at that spot.
“We feel great about staying at No. 2,” Peters said when asked bluntly whether or not he was still considering trading down from the near top spot. “I don’t see a whole lot of scenarios where we trade down, to be honest with you.”
Honestly and an up front answer about a draft pick. What a year 2024 is turning out to be for Washington.
New owner already in the building, managing partner Josh Harris set out to make good on his promise to Commanders fans that they would again enjoy being one of the darlings of the NFL this offseason.
He reinstalled a traditional organizational structure that has Peters steering the ship and head coach Dan Quinn manning the rudders of football operations with two coordinators – Kliff Kingsbury on offense and Joe Whitt Jr. on defense – leading their platoons while special teams coordinator Larry Izzo gets the undercelebrated role leading a phase of the game many chose to ignore until it goes badly enough to be noticed.
Harris didn’t go full-on throwback conventional though and brought in his own analytics expert to run a department responsible for making sure traditional roles have all the old and new school data they can have at their fingertips.
Still, even with all the advantages one ownership group can provide, there’s anxiety, nervousness, and excitement.
And Harris has been involved in all of it, meeting with the quarterback prospects at the NFL Scouting Combine this year and it’s assumbed was around when four of them joined 16 other prospects in Ashburn, Virginia just this week.
It’ll be the final major publicly known step Harris has to take this offseason as his people select a new quarterback to lead his team.
We don’t know who that will be, but we do know it’ll at least most likely happen at pick No. 2 of the 2024 NFL Draft.
