Were you happy with the Washington Commanders NFL draft selections? Were you frustrated? Did you scream at the television when Ron Rivera picked another defensive player?
Imagine how Josh Harris must have felt.
Like you, the soon-to-be Commanders owner probably watched the draft. But unlike you, he was watching it knowing that maybe in a few weeks, the players that Rivera and general manager Martin Mayhew were picking would be his players. And he had no control over it.
If the anticipated approval of the $6 billion sale, expected by the league owner’s meetings May 22, had been a few weeks earlier, Harris might have had a say in the future of his future team. But last week, Dan Snyder was still the boss.
According to Rivera, Snyder still had oversight over the team’s 2023 draft. “We had a plan coming out of the season,” Rivera told reporters. “We mapped it out with the current ownership. We stuck to that plan, [went] into free agency and [came] out of it with the depth and potential starters that we really like. … You look at those different things that we’ve done, and you feel positive.”
I’m not sure that Harris was feeling particularly positive if he was watching his future coach and general manager tell the story about dialing the wrong number while trying to call third-round draft pick Ricky Stromberg.
“Somehow Ricky’s phone is messed up,” Rivera said. “We tried to call him and somehow the number ricocheted. I said, ‘Ricky Stromberg please. The guy says, ‘Who?’ ‘Ricky? Stromberg please? Oh, you’ve got the wrong number.’”
Abbott and Costello had a good laugh about that one.
You might chalk that up to just a technological snafu that could have happened to anyone — unless you happen to remember that this coach didn’t realize that his team faced elimination in the next-to-last game this season against the Browns — a game they lost, 24-10, with another of Rivera’s prize decisions, Carson Wentz, back at quarterback. He expressed shock in the postgame press conference that the loss eliminated the Commanders from the playoffs and admitted to the mistake in his follow-up press conference Monday.
“I know I made a little bit of a gaffe yesterday, not realizing that we could get knocked out of the playoffs, but to be honest with you, I never thought that we would lose,” Rivera said.
How could you ever have confidence in any decision this man would make after that? Yet, there he was, picking Josh Harris’ players.
You don’t think Harris was paying attention? After all, his dance card was pretty full with both of the American sports teams he owns, the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils, in the playoffs.
But it was kind of hard to avoid the NFL draft. An unduplicated audience of 54.4 million people in the U.S. watched it, according to the league. It seemed to be on 64 channels. I’m pretty sure at one point I saw Mel Kiper on C-SPAN.
Where did newly-hired offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy watch it?
“You go out and spend all this money on Eric Bieniemy and then you don’t select an offensive skill position until the sixth?” analyst Bucky Brooks asked on the NFL Network.
A few days before the draft, Rivera told reporters Bieniemy was the Energizer Bunny around the draft discussions. “It’s been very interesting, very energetic,” he said. “I mean the dude is constantly on the go. I love his responses to the readings. I love his comments. His insight is very good. We’ve all really pretty much learned very quickly what he’s looking for, for what we want to do offensively and how he sees players fitting.”
So was Bieniemy running around the room, telling Rivera, “Good one, Ron. Another defensive back. Defense! Defense!”
The one truth about the draft is nobody really knows anything about the results. The projection of talent is a difficult art in all sports. Lest we forget, former Washington general manager and Hall of Famer Bobby Beathard, when he was in San Diego, selected quarterback Ryan Leaf with the second pick in the 1998 draft.
Nobody knows anything.
That said, Josh Harris had to watch a man who didn’t even know his team’s playoff opportunities select the players that would soon be his. That’s like watching the house you are about to close on being decorated by Oscar Madison.
You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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