An Evaluation of Adam Peters entering year 3

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March 2, 2026

by Steve Thomas

Adam Peters was hired by Washington Redskins Washington Football Team Washington Commanders Washington owner Josh Harris to serve as the team’s General Manager in the wake of the firing of former Head Coach and General Manager Ron Rivera.  Since that time, Peters has led the team through two full offseasons and two regular seasons, and is about to enter year three.  That’s enough time and results to give Peters at least an initial evaluation of his performance and leadership of the team.  A big part of an evaluation of any general manager is obviously the team’s win – loss record and playoff success (or lack thereof), but there’s certainly more to it.  This is particularly true when the franchise in question was as big of a trainwreck as was Washington coming out of the Daniel Snyder era.  As a result, we’re going to dive into a few different areas, or rather, at least as many as I can think of.  I’m not big into totally subjective, meaningless letter grades in this context, but since this is an evaluation, I’m going to give it a shot.  Feel free to provide your own grades of Peters in the comment section if you’re so inclined.

Basic professionalism

The first thing to address is professionalism.  To his everlasting credit, Peters, along with owner Josh Harris, has turned the team around from being one of the worst organizations in American professional sports and one of the bottom two or three worst managed franchises in the NFL to one that is at a minimum back into the realm of normal.  The drama or ridiculous nonsense that infected the team’s reputation is over.  Gone are the days of front office drama, congressional hearings, reports of misconduct, and insane, “let’s win the offseason” player signings.  Harris obviously plays a big role in this, but I give Peters credit for playing a major role in this regard.  Running a basic, professional organization shouldn’t necessarily earn a ton of credit, but when you’re Washington, suffering through multiple decades of all types of craziness, this is a pretty big deal.

Grade: A+

Coaches

Peters hired head coach Dan Quinn.  I’m not going to give him too much credit or blame for the rest of the staff, because while I’m sure that Peters had to approve those various hires, they were mainly Quinn’s choices.  In my view, Peters’ responsibility for the coaching staff is indirect at best.  In terms of Quinn, he wasn’t necessarily the splashiest hire in the world, but it was another case of solid professionalism.  In that respect, I applauded the hire at the time.  Of course, the failures of the 2025 season resulted in the team firing both the offensive coordinator, Kliff Kingsbury, and the defensive coordinator, Joe Whitt.  That means that Quinn will be next if 2026 isn’t a big turnaround.  Therefore, I think the true grade on this hire is yet to be determined; however, at a minimum, it continued the move to solid professionalism and stability. The chaos and mismanagement of the Synder era ended with Ron Rivera, a decent person who had way too much power and authority.  Peters’ move to hire Quinn ended that mess, and for that, I approve.  That having been said, the full story remains to be told.

Grade: C

Drafts

Here’s a list of Washington’s draft picks so far in the Adam Peters era:

2024

Rd 1 – QB Jayden Daniels

Rd 2 – DT Jer’Zhan Newton

CB Mike Sainristil

TE Ben Sinnott

Rd 3 – OL Brandon Coleman

WR Luke McCaffrey

Rd 5 – LB Jordan Magee

LB Dominique Hampton

Rd 7 – DL Javontae Jean-Baptiste

2025

Rd 1 – OT Josh Conerly Jr.

Rd 2 – CB Trey Amos

Rd 4 – WR Jaylin Lane

Rd 6 – LB Kain Medrano

Rd 7 – RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt

The most obvious draft pick here is Daniels; however, honestly, almost anyone would’ve drafted Daniels with the number 2 overall selection.  For purposes of evaluating Peters’ performance, I’m not sure how much credit he really deserves for that pick.  He made the glaringly obvious move and didn’t do something crazy instead, so congrats on that.  However, Daniels needs a return to form after his disastrous 2025 season in order to prove that he really is a true franchise quarterback.  As to the rest of the 2024 picks, it’s clearly too early to make definitive conclusions, but with that having been said, I think it’s fair to point out how some of the players have been doing so far.  Of the second round picks, only Sainristil seems to be trending in the right direction.  Newton hasn’t really stepped up and proved he’s a plus-level starter, and Sinnott hasn’t accomplished much in his limited opportunities.  The two round 3 picks, Coleman and McCaffrey, seem to be in roughly the same boat as Newton and Sinnott, in that neither of them are trending in the direction of becoming solid starters, at least so far in year two.  Of the last three picks, i.e., Magee, Hampton, and Jean-Bapiste, Magee has shown promise and made end up being a long-term starter.  That’s outstanding for a sixth round pick.

In terms of the 2025 draft, Conerly started slow but got better as the season went on and is well on his way to becoming an engrained starter, so congratulations to Peters on that pick.  Amos is on the same track.  Of the final three, Lane, Medrano, and Croskey-Merritt, both Lane and Merritt have exceeded expectations.  If Lane is nothing else, he’s a quality punt returner, and thus worth a fourth round pick for that reason alone.  Clearly, Croskey-Merritt is a home run as a seventh round pick.  Only Medrano hasn’t shown much so far, but as a sixth round pick, that isn’t unexpected or overly concerning.

Therefore, I’m cautiously giving Peters some credit for his drafts.  No general manager is going to hit on every players – busts happen to every team, no matter how good they are.  In addition, after going through my extensive massive draft analysis project, which I updated last year (click here to read; the links to all four installments are in the piece), I can say with a high degree of confidence that finding any quality starter on day 3 is very rare.

Grade: B

Trades

Peters has made five trades so far:

  • March 14, 2024: Traded QB Sam Howell and 2024 4th and 6th round picks to Seattle in exchange for 2024 3rd and 5th round picks.
  • August 24, 2024: Traded WR Jahan Dotson and a 5th round pick in 2025 to the Eagles in exchange for a 3rd round pick and two 7th round picks in 2025
  • November 5, 2024: Trade with the Saints for CB Marshon Lattimore and a 5th round pick in 2025 in exchange for 3rd, 4th, and 6th round picks in 2025
  • March 1, 2025: Trade with the 49ers for WR Deebo Samuel in exchange for a 5th round pick in 2025
  • March 10, 2025: Traded with the Texans for OT Laremy Tunsil and a 4th round pick in exchange for Washington’s 3rd and 7th round pick in 2025 and 2nd and 4th round picks in 2026

Clearly, Tunsil has been everything for which Washington hoped, although he was expensive in terms of draft capital.  The huge miss here is obviously the Lattimore trade, which in my view has been a full-scale disaster.  Samuel was probably worth a fifth round pick, although not more than that, and getting rid of Dotson for a net positive in terms of draft picks was also a good thing.  Finally, moving on from Howell was inevitable given the arrival of Daniels, so at least getting something for him was better than nothing.

I can’t in good conscience say that this has been Peters’ best area.  Granted, two of these players have been very productive, but the team has given up a ton of draft picks, and had a huge miss with Lattimore.

Grade: C+

Roster management

Washington’s major 2024 free agency moves were as follows:

Major signings

Major releases / players not re-signed

Once again, no team is going to hit on 100% of its free agency signings.  In the case of Washington’s signings this year, two things were true at once: (1) several of these players made significant, critical contributions to the team’s success that season, and (2) many of them were old by NFL standards.  These were signings designed for short-term benefits, not long-term team building.  In some circumstances, that is an acceptable strategy.  In the case of Washington’s 2024 season, it clearly worked, resulting in the team’s first NFC Championship in more than 30 years.  However, what these moves largely did not do is set the team up with young talent who could lead the team for years to come.  Regarding the major players the team let go, neither Gibson nor Samuel ended up producing at a starter level for their respective next teams.  However, letting Curl leave for the Raiders for a relatively modest contract of 2 years, $9M was perhaps the biggest mistake Peters made in 2024.  Curl has started 33 games for the Raiders since then, and made 201 tackles and 2 interceptions.  It sure would be nice to have a player that that in Washington.

Washington’s major 2025 free agency moves were as follows:

Major signings

Major releases / players not re-signed

It was here in 2025 that Peters made a critical miscalculation, essentially doubling down on the team’s old roster – in fact, making it even older – in an attempt to capitalize on the NFC Championship appearance the year before.  This ultimately was proven very wrong, as the team fell apart due to a combination of injuries and ineffective play.  Kinlaw was the only somewhat younger signing of any significance, and while he did start the entire season, he was inconsistent at times and did not play like a plus-level starter, especially considering his 3 year, $45M contracts.  Players such as Wagner, Ertz, and Miller really showed their age.  Wagner produced massive tackle numbers while simultaneously clearly showing that he’d lost a step or three in terms of speed and agility.  Also, letting Chinn leave for the Raiders for a two year, $16.2M deal proved to be a mistake, as Chinn started 15 games for the Raiders and made 114 tackles.

Finally, while the 2026 offseason hasn’t really begun yet, Peters’ initial move, releasing center Tyler Biadasz, is a bit of a mystery to me.  The consensus amongst offensive line experts – which I don’t profess to be – was that while his play dropped off a bit from 2024, he was still a worthy starter.  Releasing him at this point, thereby creating yet another hole to fill, for relatively little cap relief, makes absolutely no sense to me.  I can’t imagine that the team believes in Nick Allegretti enough to hand him the starting job, but perhaps that’s the case.  The point is, I’m tentatively chalking this up as a negative.

Overall, there’s no getting around the fact that Peters’ big gamble – foregoing youth in favor of a quick run to the Super Bowl – was a bad decision and one that ultimately did not serve the team well.  Peters’ roster strategy failed.  Now, thanks to largely to Peters, the team is faced with the prospect of having to rebuild a pretty large portion of the defense, as well as needing to fill some offensive holes.  All of that is on Peters.

Grade: D

Overall

In summary, while I applaud the fact that Peters, along with Harris, have turned this organization from a dumpster fire that was the laughingstock of the NFL into one with at least reasonable/normal respect, some of his moves have not worked and haven’t put the team on a long term path to success.  The fact is that the team’s 2024 success was certainly because of good play, but it was also thanks to an easy schedule and several instances of pure luck on the field.  I think his moves in 2025 reflected his mistaken view that the team was better than it actually was, causing him to double down on old players in an attempt to get to one Super Bowl.  That move, of course, failed in spectacular fashion, and that’s ultimately on Peters.

Overall grade: C+