Washington Football Team should not consider Marty Hurney as GM

The Ron Rivera chapter of the Washington Football Team has been a success so far.

Fourteen games into the 2020 regular season, the Washington Football Team has exceeded expectations. Many predicted them to be bottom feeders in the NFC East, but the Washington Football Team instead leads the division at 6-8 with two games left to play. And with a win next week against the Carolina Panthers, they could potentially clinch and secure a spot in the playoffs.

It’s tough to nitpick when Rivera has his team in this position, and it’s clear that Rivera is the right head coach for the team moving forward. But if there anything one can take issue with, it might be his over-reliance on former Panthers connections.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing; many of Rivera’s Panthers connections have already distinguished themselves as quality additions, such as tight ends coach Pete Hoener, offensive line coach John Matsko, and offensive coordinator Scott Turner.

But some Panthers connections on the player side haven’t done as well, and there’s also a lot of uncertainty when assessing former Panthers for the open general manager position. That debate will now come back to the forefront, as the Panthers recently fired general manager Marty Hurney.

It likely won’t take long for Hurney to become a name mixed in the Washington Football Team’s general manager conversation. Hurney was with Ron Rivera for Rivera’s first two seasons in Carolina, and reprised his role as Rivera’s general manager from 2017 to 2019.

The two undoubtedly have some familiarity from those days, but Hurney’s recent record of talent evaluation is not great. He’s hit on his first-round picks since 2017, adding Christian McCaffrey, D.J. Moore, Brian Burns, and Derrick Brown, but after Round 1, he’s been very underwhelming in Rounds 2-7. On Day 3, he has almost no hits.

Compare that record to Kyle Smith, an in-house candidate, who’s had tremendous success as his role within the scouting department has increased. This past draft season, in his first draft free of dysfunction, Smith struck gold with his first two picks in Chase Young and Antonio Gibson, and already, seventh-round pick Kamren Curl is budding into a standout performer on defense.

In previous years, Smith’s impact has been just as noticeable. Since 2017, when Smith was promoted to Director of College Personnel, Washington has nabbed mid-to-late-round steals such as Terry McLaurin, Chase Roullier, Tim Settle, Cole Holcomb, and Jimmy Moreland.

Ron Rivera has often deferred to his past Panthers connections to get himself off the ground in Washington, but he shouldn’t here. Marty Hurney has less recent success and less long-term potential than Kyle Smith, and adding him into the front office might just segment the growth that’s been apparent in recent months.