It looks like Washington may be zeroing in on its new general manager. Team brass, including head coach Ron Rivera, are meeting with former Panthers GM Marty Hurney today, sources told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link).
Rapoport adds “Hurney is the top candidate to be their new GM, a hire that could be official this week,” so it sounds like this is close to being a done deal. That’s not too surprising, since Rivera and Hurney worked closely together for a while during their days with Carolina. Hurney was originally the Panthers’ GM from 2002-12, and hired Rivera in 2011. He was then fired, got brought back in 2017, and then was fired again back in December.
Rivera operated as the team’s GM for the 2020 season, and had final say on personnel decisions. It’s unclear whether he’ll retain that authority in this new arrangement, but whatever the case Rivera will certainly still have a lot of power and will report directly to ownership and not to Hurney.
We heard Hurney connected to this opening very shortly after he was fired by Panthers owner David Tepper, and it seems like he was always the top target. Washington is coming off an improbable NFC East title, and whoever the new GM is they’ll have an excellent young core on defense to work with.
Also no matter who the new GM is, they’ll need to figure out what to do at quarterback. It’s unclear if Alex Smith plans on playing beyond this season and is 36 anyway, Dwayne Haskins has been cut, and Kyle Allen doesn’t inspire much confidence as a quarterback of the future. It’ll be very interesting to see what they do this offseason.
Please stop with the Carolina hires.. as a WFT these people got u fired in Carolina .. no need to help them when they couldn’t help you
Amen! But you know they’ll dial Cam in the offseason.
fathead0507 This is just weird. Usually teams target the Patriots sloppy leftovers, and that makes a bit of sense. But WFT wants the Panthers sloppy leftovers, who won nothing in Carolina.
Hurney was GM when the team made the playoffs three times and went to its first Super Bowl, and hired the guy who was their HC for their next four trips to the playoffs and second Super Bowl appearance.
Two NFC conference championships are not “nothing,” especially in a division that regularly featured competitive Saints and Falcons teams.
This hire would really work to Ron’s advantage. There definitely needs to be a buffer between the strong personalities of Snyder and Rivera and you would expect Hurney to side with Riverboat on most of the contentious issues.
Cam Newton can dawn the new colors next season for WFT.
I think Matthew Stafford is the more likely next WFT starter than Cam Newton.