Mortgage the future? Pursue all options? Making sense of QB plans originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The Washington Football Team rolled out its new front office structure on Wednesday, introducing Martin Mayhew as general manager and Marty Hurney as executive vice president of football personnel.
Those are fancy titles, but the title that matters most?
It's Ron Rivera. Boss.
So while it was quite pleasant and at times entertaining for all three executives to speak with the media, not much important information got revealed. That's what Rivera wants, a crew that doesn't say much, and that's what Rivera got.
He often preaches on not confusing what's important with what's interesting, and for Washington, what's important is the quarterback.
Many, many questions for Mayhew, Hurney and Rivera centered on the quarterback position and largely the organizational leaders didn't say much. One phrase that got repeated, however, was about not making a big move to settle the position.
"You want to be aggressive, but you do not want to mortgage the future. Again, this is a team game. As important as that quarterback position is, you have to have people around him," Hurney said Wednesday.
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Rivera used the same phrase.
"You don’t want to necessarily mortgage your future," the coach said. "You don’t want to take away the opportunity to continue your growth."
Now is a key time to impart one of the late, great Rich Tandler's famous rules - don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.
It's easy for Hurney and Rivera to say that the football team won't 'mortgage the future' for a quarterback, but Washington just made an aggressive offer in a trade for Matthew Stafford.
It would be silly to think the team won't continue to hunt for their QB of the future, even if Mayhew said the position doesn't need to be solved this year.
That doesn't mean Washington will absolutely find a franchise quarterback this offseason, but it would be naive to think the team is going to stop trying.
