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Daily Slop – 16 Jul 24: Training camp previews, Brian Robinson, Zach Ertz, Ben Sinnott, and a new personnel exec

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A collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East and the NFL in general

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The Athletic (paywall)

Commanders hiring former Panthers GM Scott Fitterer: Sources

Fitterer, part of the Seattle Seahawks’ front office from 2001 to 2020 before joining Carolina from 2021 to 2023, will support the Commanders’ revamped department as a personnel executive.

The move is the latest in an offseason revamp for the front office. After hiring Peters from the San Francisco 49ers in January, Washington added former Detroit Lions executive Lance Newmark as assistant GM and Brandon Sosna as the senior vice president of football operations. Former Baltimore Ravens college scouting director David Blackburn is among the new faces as Washington’s director of player personnel. Peters retained former Commanders GM Martin Mayhew as a senior personnel executive/adviser to Peters.

Fitterer, 50, entered the NFL as an area scout for the New York Giants in 1998 before joining the Seahawks in 2001. Later titles included director of college scouting, co-director of player personnel and vice president of football operations in 2020.

The Athletic (paywall)

Fantasy football breakouts for all 32 NFL teams

Washington Commanders

RB Brian Robinson Jr.

Usage remains an unknown variable under new offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, especially with a rookie quarterback under center. But the power-running Robinson is expected to be the lead back, with Austin Ekeler handling passing-down duties (though Robinson is an underrated receiver). Kingsbury’s primary running backs with the Cardinals — Kenyan Drake (2019-20) and James Conner (2021-22) — had 18 and 22 rushing touchdowns, respectively, even with a mobile QB in Kyler Murray. Leaning on the run game to help Jayden Daniels’ acclimation to the NFL should also boost Robinson’s appeal.

Commanders.com

Commanders 2024 training camp preview | Tight ends

Zach Ertz’s impact: Although technically not part of the Commanders’ free agency class in March, Ertz was the new regime’s first attempt at injecting the roster with some veteran leadership. Ertz’s best years are behind him, but he doesn’t lack athleticism or a natural feel for running routes. If he’s any semblance of the tight end he was earlier in his career, he should be an asset for Daniels once he is named the starting quarterback. When it comes to his own position, Ertz has already provided some knowledge to his younger teammates like Sinnott. Ertz is clearly the starting tight end, so he’s certainly going to get plenty of attention, but if he continues to look impressive in camp, he could be even more important to the offense’s success.

Ben Sinnott’s development: While Ertz represents the present state of the Commanders’ tight end position, the team hopes that Sinnott is the future. As the second tight end taken off the draft board, Sinnott is coming off a successful finale to his college career with 676 yards and six touchdowns at Kansas State. In OTAs and minicamp, Sinnott has some impressive catches while working with Daniels in seven-on-seven and team drills, although we’ll have to wait until the pads come on to see how he fares as a blocker. It will be interesting to see where Sinnott falls on the depth chart by the end of camp. Bates seems to have TE2 locked up, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if Sinnott were to win the job for himself.

Podcasts & videos

S1:E2 The Special Teams Genius | Hail Tales Podcast | Washington Commanders

Beltway Football: Training Camp is around the corner

NFC East links

Bleeding Green Nation

Jalen Hurts is not a top 10 quarterback, according to NFL insider survey

“He’s never going to be a top five quarterback in the eyes of a lot of evaluators.”

Last year, the combination of 80ish executives, coaches, coordinators, and scouts ranked Jalen Hurts as the sixth best quarterback in the league. This year, the Philadelphia Eagles QB is not considered to be a top 10 player at his position.

Hurts was instead included in the “honorable mentions” section, along with Brock Purdy, Jordan Love, Tua Tagovailoa, Kirk Cousins, and Trevor Lawrence. Here’s the write-up on him:

After a Year 3 star turn that garnered a Super Bowl appearance and a $255 million contract, Hurts’ play dipped in 2023. His QBR ranking fell from fourth (68.3) to 12th (60.1). His 15 interceptions were so uncharacteristic that the total nearly matched that of his first three years combined (18). A knee injury that he tried his best to manage clearly affected him, according to several evaluators.

“He was playing hurt,” an NFC executive said. “The Eagles tried to downplay that, but he didn’t look right. He wasn’t the same runner he was in the past, and passing the ball was tough for him.” Added an AFC scout: “He’ll always be in that 7-12 range, depending on how productive he is each year.”

Also of note: The Eagles’ offense “became stale” as a whole, according to a high-ranking NFL team official, and the predictable offensive attack affected Hurts’ stock.

Jeremy Fowler, who ultimately conducted this NFL insider survey, was asked why Hurts dropped out of the top 10 during a broadcast appearance:

“Injuries and bad offense, it’s pretty simple. Executives point out to me that Jalen Hurts did not look right last year. The Eagles can downplay any knee issues he was dealing with in-season, he wasn’t really on the injury report in some cases, but they felt like he just wasn’t moving the same, couldn’t do that dual-threat ability that he’s so good at with the offense. And then Nick Sirianni’s attack with Philly last year was just not very good. They were in a situation where they kind of rolled the ball out, tried to do what they did the year before, teams adjusted, the Eagles didn’t evolve, and Hurts was in a position where he wasn’t highlighted. I will point out that a lot of voters say that, even though he’s very good, he’s never going to be a top five quarterback in the eyes of a lot of evaluators. He’s sort of in that 7-to-13 range depending on how he does that [given] year.

Eagles Today

The Rebranding Of Eagles’ Coach Nick Sirianni

The answer to what Sirianni had done for Philadelphia lately is losing six of seven after a 10-1 start to the 2023 campaign and doing that in ugly fashion, seemingly with no answers or ability to fix the problems.

Former NFL Executive of the Year Randy Mueller boiled it down succinctly for SI.com’s Eagles Today.

“You’re job as an NFL head coach is to fix problems,” Mueller said.

Sirianni arguably exacerbated things last season with his tortured decision to move on from ex-defensive coordinator Sean Desai and failing to tweak his now self-described stale offense to better help a regressing Jalen Hurts deal with the blitz.

The bleeding never stopped and the 2023-24 Eagles were officially pronounced on Wild Card Weekend in Tampa against a lesser-talented team with one high-level team executive describing the Eagles’ performance during a 32-9 blowout as “f@#$ing embarrassing.”

The pressure of being an NFL head coach is unrelenting.

NFL league links

Articles

Pro Football Talk

Caleb Williams has said he’s not handling his contract; the Bears tell the NFL they’re negotiating with him

Over the weekend, Williams said regarding his rookie deal, “I’m not handling that. My lawyers and attorney and everybody, the head of the Bears, everybody up there up top is handling that. That’s not my position that I’m handling.”

Since Williams isn’t represented by an NFLPA-certified agent, the Bears aren’t permitted to negotiate with anyone but Williams. According to an NFL spokesperson, the Bears have told the league that they’re not talking to any third parties.

“Your read on Article 48 [of the Collective Bargaining Agreement] is correct,” the league told PFT via email. “The team, however, confirmed to the league that it is only speaking to the player.”

So either someone is telling an inaccurate story, or the Bears think they’re negotiating with Williams when they aren’t. The most common workaround for self-represented players who really aren’t representing themselves is to create an email address that is ostensibly the player but is actually someone else.

Washington Post (paywall)

Terrell Davis says he was handcuffed after flight in ‘traumatizing’ incident

The former NFL player described being led off a plane by law enforcement. In a statement, United Airlines said it has reached out to Davis to apologize.

In a lengthy post published to his Instagram and X accounts Monday, Davis said he was with his wife, two sons and daughter on a flight from Denver to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif., when a flight attendant alleged Davis hit him. Davis said one of his sons asked the attendant for a cup of ice during the beverage service and the flight attendant “either didn’t hear or ignored” Davis’s son and continued on.

Davis, according to his statement, “lightly tapped” on the attendant’s arm to get his attention and ask again for the cup of ice.

Davis alleged that the attendant responded, “Don’t hit me,” and headed to the front of the plane, leaving his beverage cart. Davis wrote that he was confused by the attendant’s actions but took it as nothing more than him being “rude and blatantly wrong in his accusations of me hitting him.” Davis said he did not interact further with the attendant for the remainder of the flight. But once on the ground, according to Davis’s recounting, the pilot instructed the passengers to stay seated as six FBI agents and law enforcement officers boarded the plane.

Davis said the agents and local authorities proceeded to his seat, placed him in handcuffs without explanation and removed him from the flight while his wife and children watched and “multiple” passengers recorded the incident but remained silent.

“This is clearly not the kind of travel experience we strive to provide, and we have reached out to Mr. Davis’s team to apologize,” the airline said in a statement through its media relations team. “We have removed the flight attendant from duty while we closely review this matter.”

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