What We Learned About Adam Peters in the 2024 Draft – Part I

Best player available and breaking from the herd

Shortly after Adam Peters was hired, I wrote an article about what changes to expect in Washington’s approach to the draft based on how he ran San Francisco’s drafts since 2017.

With his first draft in Washington in the books, I am pleased to say the new GM was just as advertised. The Commanders’ 2024 draft was like nothing we have seen since, well, ever. Peters stuck to his board and picked players who fit the direction his coaching staff want to take the team. He avoided mortgaging the team’s future in costly trades and doesn’t appear to have reached to pick players above their value point, according to what we can infer about his scouting team’s board.

This draft was conducted against the backdrop of one of the more rapid team rebuilds in recent memory. Nevertheless, the choices that were made appear to have been focused on building a roster and team culture for future success, directing draft capital to where it could have the greatest long term impact given how the board fell.

The approach that we saw aligns very well with the draft strategies of the most competitive NFL franchises. Hopefully, it will return results similar to those Peters achieved with the 49ers, who averaged close to one elite player per draft throughout his tenure.

In this three part series, I will review six big takeaways from Adam Peters’ first draft in Washington:

Part I: Best Player Available, Not Mel Kiper’s Draft Board

Part II: Moving Up and Moving Down, Scouting Against the Roster

Part III: Late Round Players with Potential, Building a Winning Culture

---

Best Player Available Is Real

Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK

In the 2022 draft, the Washington Commanders held the 11^th overall pick. When it was their turn to pick, Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton was still available, after an unexpected slide out the top 10, where he had been projected to go. The media consensus board had him ranked as the fourth best prospect in the draft class.

Instead of picking Hamilton, Ron Rivera traded back to 16^th with the Saints to acquire more draft picks, and selected wide receiver Jahan Dotson. It was a poorly kept secret that the Commanders planned on picking a wide receiver in the first round to give their recently acquired QB Carson Wentz another weapon on offense. Dotson had a consensus rank of 31, and was the last WR remaining with a borderline first round projection after a run on WRs in the first 12 picks.

Hamilton fell three more places down the draft order, into the waiting arms of the Ravens. Baltimore GM Eric DeCosta explained the rationale for picking Hamilton, rather than a pass rusher to replace Za’Darius Smith whom he had lost in free agency:

We didn’t have a huge need at safety … We could have drafted a player at another position that would have filled a bigger need for us, but Kyle was just up there [on the draft board]. We had to take him. It would have been irresponsible for us not to take him, given his ability.

You have to have talented players. You have to have, like, freaks to win consistently. So, generally I feel you have to draft best available player.

[DeCosta acknowledged that some positions take priority, citing cornerback, pass-rusher, or left tackle as positions of great importance.]

You maybe weigh those positions differently because those positions are so critical. In the end, though, for us, we’re drafting best available player every single time.

There is a curious disconnect between how fans and some media figures think about the draft and how NFL GMs will tell you they approach it. Fans typically talk about addressing needs; whereas GMs from good teams seem to toe a party line of drafting the best players available. Fans talk about positions and GMs talk about players.

At one level, it might seem counterintuitive to ignore a glaring roster hole to pick a prospect at a position of relative strength. But if you think a bit deeper, it actually makes sense. As the Hamilton example illustrates, teams that make a habit of passing over elite prospects to address immediate needs tend to starve their rosters of talent, while more competitive teams who generally pick later in the draft order fill their rosters with the players they pass up.

In the months leading up to the draft, discussion on Hogs Haven focussed almost exclusively on two topics: quarterbacks and offensive tackles.

After drafting QB Jayden Daniels in the first round, everyone expect the next pick to be his new blind side protector. Peters attempted to trade back into the later part of the first round to pick one, but was unsuccessful. When Day 2 started, all of the OTs with first and early second round grades were off the board.

Even so, it came as a complete surprise when the Commanders picked Illinois defensive tackle Jer’Zhan “Johnny” Newton with their next pick.

Peters explained why he picked Newton in his presser at the end of Day 2:

…Johnny, we could not believe he was still there. We were a little nervous that he wasn’t going to make it to us at 36. We looked at moving up to get him, very surprising. We had a first round grade on him and he is an explosive, violent player. He’s a team captain. He got the Commander tag and he’s exactly who we want to bring in this building. We think he’s an advanced player who can come in and play right away. Really a three-down player who you can play on the run downs, play on pass downs, skilled, hands and feet are tied together. And he arrives violently when he gets to the ball and he plays just like we want him to play. So just thrilled to get Johnny.

… We have two great players on the inside, and we have two other really good football players too in that defensive tackle group. And then really behind them, we have some good players too. So, at first glance you think that it’s a pretty packed room, but I don’t think you can, that’s what I learned in San Francisco is you can’t have too many great [defensive] linemen, and we’ll find a way to get ‘em all on the field. I know DQ and that’s what I said to DQ is can we do this? He’s like, yeah, we’ll find a way to get ‘em all on the field. Talked with [Defensive Coordinator] Joe Witt and he was all about it. Because really Johnny was certainly clearly higher than anybody else we had on the board there. So everybody was on board, and that was cool.

Yeah, not so much a need, I would just say if the right player was available tomorrow, we’ll take an offensive lineman just like we’d take any other position.

Newton was widely expected to be a first round pick. He ranked 23rd on the media consensus board. It’s possible he slipped due to concerns about a Jones fracture suffered at the end of the 2023 season. But the Commanders had cleared him medically, and he was well ahead of anyone else on their board. Despite pressing needs at OT and CB, and the fact that he played at the only truly deep position on the roster, Peters pulled the trigger.

That wasn’t the end of it, either. After going QB and DT with their first two picks, many onlookers were convinced the next pick would be OT, given the Commanders’ glaring need at the position. Maybe a boundary CB, with Cooper DeJean on the board. I’ll talk more about him in a second.

Peters’ next pick at 50 was Michigan nickel corner Mike Sainristil, at a position where many fans feel that the Commanders already have an adequate starter in Quan Martin. Once again Peters demonstrated that having someone in place to play a position will not deter him from picking a potentially better player at the top of his board:

Then moving to [CB Mike] Mikey Sainristil, another captain. And another one where we were pretty nervous there because as it was coming down to him, I mean, that’s who we had our sights set on.

…maybe he is, in stature, he might be smaller, but he is as physical as they come. He’ll bring it every time. He’s tough. He’s extremely smart. The one thing, not the one thing, but many things, he does really well, but he takes the ball away. He had six interceptions this year. I can’t imagine anybody’s in his class in terms of ball skills on the defensive side of the ball. He’s got incredible ball skills and that’s what we look for is speed and ball skills. His instincts. And so, we believe in him to be a really, really good player as a nickel.

The pre- and post-draft discussions on Hogs Haven have run hot at times. Some commenters have even questioned whether NFL GMs are telling the truth when they insist they prioritize talent over need. If there had been any remaining doubt about which way Washington’s new GM leans, I think the Newton pick settled it. And the Sainristil pick drew a line under it, in case anyone didn’t believe what they were seeing.

The Commanders under Peters will be drafting the best players available, at any position, to raise the team’s talent ceiling and give themselves a competitive edge.

He’s Not Using Mel Kiper’s Draft Board

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

These guys either.

After taking Newton in the second round, the Commanders were on clock again at 50. Another player had slipped down from the first round and was still available.

Iowa CB Cooper DeJean plays a position near the top of the Commanders’ needs list, following the switch to a new defense in 2024. He has the size and physicality which we associate with Dan Quinn and Joe Whitt’s secondaries. He also has the freakish athleticism that Peters seems to covet, with the highest Relative Athletic Score (9.85) among CBs in the draft class.

However, some evaluators think DeJean projects as a zone CB or interchangeable safety, who plays best with his eyes to the ball. Whitt’s defense in Dallas used a heavy dose of man coverage. That might present a challenge for DeJean, whose hip tightness might impair his ability to stay in phase with receivers and impose scheme limitations.

We may never know where DeJean ranked on the Commanders’ draft board. What we learned is that it wasn’t high enough to stop Peters from doing a pick swap with the Eagles, which allowed a him to go to a division rival. Clearly, the Commanders’ draft board had DeJean ranked very differently from the media consensus, which would have made him an even more compelling pick at 40 than Newton had been at 36.

That shouldn’t really come as a huge surprise. Peters presides over a highly collaborative scouting process that brings together coaches, scouts and analytics teams to find prospects that fit what the coaches wants to do on both sides of the ball and special teams. Players who might rate highly with other teams might not even appear on the Commanders’ board if they don’t fit the plan. DeJean might have rated lower as a safety on the Commanders’ board than prospects they expected to be available with a trade down to 50.

The player that they picked at 50, Michigan CB Mike Sainristil, seems to resonate with everything that Peters and Head Coach Dan Quinn are about. That likely explains why he was the next player on the board. I’ll talk more about him in Parts II and III.

After Sainristil, Peters dropped another surprise by picking Kansas State tight end, Ben Sinnott, with pick #53 obtained from Philadelphia. The media experts had expected Sinnott to be drafted in the third or fourth round. He didn’t even make the top 100 on the Athletic’s consensus board, and ranked 83^rd in Arif Hassan’s original consensus board.

Like with DeJean, the Commanders received a trade offer from another team right before they were on the board at 53. But this time, Peters wouldn’t be moved. In the words of Jets GM, Joe Douglas, who was trying to move up for a WR, “they have one guy they like and they are going to stay put if their guy is there”:

In his post-Day 2 press conference, Peters explained what made him stick at 53 to pick Sinnott, more than a round or two ahead of where the media experts had expected:

I’m not comparing him to the guys we had in San Francisco, but he reminds me of guys like [TE] Kyle Juszczyk and [TE] George Kittle. The way he blocks and in the way he moves, and just the way he competes. Certainly not putting him in that, those guys are All Pro’s, Pro Bowlers, everything you’d want, but Ben has that same mindset and he plays with that mindset. He can block really anywhere. You can put him at the end of the line of scrimmage and you can block a D end, you can block a linebacker, you can block a defensive back in space, you’ll block two people on the same play. If you saw that highlight, that was pretty cool. He can play fullback and block people on the second level, so he can do anything you want in the run game and in the pass game. He’s got great hands, can get open. He can beat man coverage, and he’s got that mindset when he gets the ball in his hands, he is not going down. So, he’s got everything we’re looking for in a Commander as well.

In saying he wasn’t going to compare him, he compared Sinnott to 49ers’ All Pro players TE George Kittle and FB Kyle Juszczyk. While other evaluators have dinged Sinnott for lacking play strength and grit to handle blocking duties in the NFL, Peters’ scouts clearly reached a different opinion. Peters praised him for his blocking ability, near the line and downfield, in addition to his competitive mindset and receiving skills.

Clearly the Commanders’ scouts had Sinnott ranked well ahead of the media consensus. And they even appear to have seen different things on tape than the experts who make their scouting reports available on the internet.

My takeaway from these draft decisions is that Peters is going to take the highest rated players on his board who fit the direction his coaches wants to take the team. That might result in taking players well ahead of where the media experts project them for the average team. It might result in passing over players who are at the top of the media consensus boards when he makes his pick. And his scouting department might reach completely different opinions about a particular player than the media experts.

Peters selected 6 All-Pro players and Pro Bowl QB Brock Purdy in 7 drafts with the 49ers, so it might be worth cutting him a little slack when his rating on a player is very different from the media consensus. Other Hogs Haven authors have noticed that the 49ers’ draft operation tended to chart its own course during his tenure there. I will be writing more about that when this three part miniseries is concluded.

Intermission

Tune in tomorrow when we’ll have a look at Peters’ approach to moving up and down the draft board and picking players who best complement the existing roster.

---