Stats show that playing it safe at TE position in free agency paid off for Washington

Washington signed TE Logan Thomas rather than giving big money to TE Austin Hooper, and through 11 games, that appears to have been the right call.

Do you remember several months back when we were arguing about free agency, and growing more and more frustrated that Washington wasn’t making big-money moves to land some of the top players on the open market? I know, it may seem like years ago, or just weeks ago, thanks to the pandemic and the odd effect it’s had on time, but I’m sure we can all at least look back and try to remember the frustrations that we had.

Well, it turns out that we were wrong, at one position at least.

Many people in Washington, myself included, were begging for Ron Rivera and Dan Snyder to go out and sign free agent TE Austin Hooper, bringing him in to be a viable pass-catcher for Dwayne Haskins and whoever else might play quarterback. Washington passed, and inside played it safe by signing TE Logan Thomas instead. Fans were uninspired, and the team caught a bad rap for several weeks.

Looking back now, though, it’s obvious that Washington likely dodged an expensive bullet.

I know, it is a cherry-picked example of a larger strategy that Washington took this season. While Rivera remarked on Monday that the team did in fact go after some big names in free agency, for the most part, they were left signing mid-level players on team-friendly deals. Players like Thomas, and J.D. McKissic, and Ronald Darby, and Kevin Pierre-Louis. In hindsight, those have all been great signings as well, with the majority of those guys playing above their pay-grade this season and helping formulate a decent team in Washington.

Going forward, it’s success stories like this that can help land the big fish as well. If players see from the outside that other guys have come into Washington and found success under Rivera, you can bet that more and more guys will want to come and see what is going on in D.C. It’s just another part of the culture rebuild that is going to benefit this team in the long run, and we have Rivera to thank for it.

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