Ron Rivera was on Adam scher's podcast that he does this week Rivera was talking about a charity event that he's doing out in California which it sounds like is very a great cause and by all accounts and we saw this up close and personal and dealt with Ron each of us individually in different capacities really really good dude still doing great work and I admire that and want to commend him for that but while on this podcast shefer was asking him some football things and questions about his time in Washington a lot came out of that that was just tough to hear yeah and wanted to pass some of this along to you guys so this was shefer asking Rivera about Jaden Daniels and whether he had started to study him at all prior to being fired right after the season ended so the idea being were you already watching the tape on this guy just in case you mentioned Jaden Daniels had you studied him at all knowing that you were gonna have a high pick um yes you know at the end of you know during the during that part you always start looking ahead and see you start watching the quarterbacks and thinking God this this kid's got he's got it and and because Cliff Kings Bar's there I think that was a tremendous pick for him because that offense counts on the quarterback doing a lot and making things happen in my opinion and you saw some of the success he had in Arizona um the one thing do is is that they've got to be able to protect him and protect him you know from from injury because the young man's GNA play all out and you don't want him to get hurt you really don't because I think he can be successful in this offense he was asked a follow-up question by shefer had you seen enough to feel like maybe you were going to take him if you had stayed there in Washington and you had still been the coach and been an active part of the front office do you think when the season ended that your organization was going in a Jaden Daniel's direction or was there another guy that you were looking at with that number two overall pick Ron no that was the quarterback I I I I I really think that was I really do um he just you look at his ability to to to prolong the play to extend the play look at his ability to throw the ball downfield and create you look at his ability to run um I was very fortunate in Carolina I had you know who I thought at the time was one of the best quarterbacks in Cam Newton I really didn't mean that and I think that that at that time and moment when when you got that guy you've got to make as much as you can and unfortunately you know we got we got to the Super Bowl but we didn't get a chance to get back and that's unfortunate because you know when you have that special guy cam really was special for us you you've gotta you do the best you can the Hogs could have saved a lot of money they didn't need to fire Ron and hire Quinn and bring in all new coaches I knew it all along and a new front office Rivera and the Marty had it all figured out they were gonna go get Jaden Daniels anyway he read the analytics of football he knew what to do unbelievable God the uh there's there's another clip in there uh that you know whether or not we have time for it or not where one of the reasons he he stated as to why maybe it didn't go well was they had a bad structure I listening just listening to him again the the just stick aside the real answers that he was talking about his charity the things that he was working on overcoming cancer some there's some really wonderful great stuff in there where I'm going good guy I get why people gravitate towards him but anytime it turned towards football ball it just got real tough to listen to real quick like it it went from hey that's awesome I'm rooting for this dude to man that's tough well when he was asked about taking Chase young number two yeah what he should have said was yeah of course we were G to take Chase young number two every single team would have taken Chase young number two we had a quarterback that was drafted in the first round the previous season that our owner still wanted to see and thought was good and oh by the way he was this can't miss generational talent that everybody thought was going to be a defensive player of the year type and he had a really good rookie year and was the D Roy and then he got hurt but he didn't say that he talked about how because it was the co year know they weren't able to do some of the same uh leadup to the draft that they normally do and so that was basically made it hard for them and maybe they would have been able to evaluate their team better I don't know what that really meant yeah like there was no mini camp before the draft so there we couldn't possibly have figured out who was on the team I I the only thing I took out of that maybe was he was saying if we were allowed to have the guys on the the field throughout the offseason like normal maybe we could have come to the realization sooner that Dwayne H Haskins was not it and then maybe we could have been able to convince now he didn't say this it's just me putting words in his mouth maybe we could have then convinced Dan Snyder pretty quickly hey this is not going to work we got to go with the quarterback while we're picking two which seems like common sense that if you don't have a good quarterback and you're picking number two you have to take a quarterback but at the time the logic was for a lot of people Dwayne H Haskins needs a chance Dwayne H Haskins hasn't had his opportunity yet Dwayne H Haskins might be good not that these other guys might actually be better and that's all that matters but here was a quote Danny shefer asked him so if you took a quarterback who would you have taken you're not GNA you won't believe who they were thinking about taking who was his favorite guy at the time Justin Herbert what it was I think we felt pretty good about Justin Herbert as someone we liked looking at I don't believe you Rivera said during his appearance at the Adam schfer podcast you know hindsight is easy because it is an opportunity to look back and say we could have done that that is an in hindsight yes and we really could have but who knows but who who could say who knows they liked Herbert but they had to stick with the incumbent because of that mean owner or or something or something yeah who knows God it just the the the explanation of the mini camp part again is what I can't get over because it's not like they were robbed of mini camp and everyone else got it you know what I mean it wasn't like well they could do it in in uh in Philadelphia but we didn't get to chance to have a mini camper they could have done it in Green Bay but we didn't get a chance to no everybody got shut down everyone's on the same playing field and the idea that a guy that was out of football for a while didn't have a chance to kind of study up on the old roster and figure out maybe some ideas and moves when he first got there now I understand by the way because at the end of 2019 Dwayne H Haskins actually had a couple of decent outings not great it's not like World beating but you go oh hey this is this is something there's a little bit of Promise here this is cool good for him so I understand want wanting to to to you know to build that way but the idea that we couldn't have identified anything because we didn't get two practices in March is I oh my God here's some of the audio on that again from shef's podcast with Ron Rivera let me go back to 2020 for a moment because the commanders had the second overall pick and you mentioned the team would work on all the quarterbacks at that time including Justin Herbert to a Tong of aloa Co happens you wind up taking the safe pick Chase young at number two how do you look back at that draft and that selection at that time well the hard part is you we didn't have um we didn't have the benefit of of having the extra mini camp the one that you could have had before training camp to see exactly what we had and who we had um you know um we didn't have an opportunity to to really work on those things and see where we really truly stood um and so because of that um knowing what we knew you know and and who we had uh we decided to to to go with the with Chase we really believe that chase could make an impact and and he did and the unfortunate part was he had he had suffered the knee injury uh a year later that's the part I would just double down on if you're looking for an excuse there is hey everyone would have taken that guy he was a can't miss player every analyst every team was screaming we were going to take Chase young we just kind of did the consensus thing and he ended up getting hurt uh this was the Herbert part that we referenced which of those quarterbacks if you could go back on it did you like at that time do you remember that uh I think we we we felt pretty good about Justin Herbert was somebody we we liked looking at um you know and then and hindsight is easy because it is an opportunity to look back and say ah we could have done that we could we really could have um but who knows I mean there's some some guys that really stepped up and became guys you ever spend time thinking about what would have happened if you had taken Herbert there in 2020 um no to be honest no I really haven't um you know the hard part is more so anything else is is you know the the season before they took a they took a quarterback in the first round yeah and unfortunately that didn't materialize we got it more so than anything else there yeah a Herbert who in four years has thrown for 4,300 yards and 31 touchdowns uhhuh 5,000 yards and 38 touchdowns 4,700 yards and 25 touchdowns and then at the down year as his coach got fired and he only played 13 games last year 3100 yards 20 touchdowns seven picks is the guy they liked at quarterback they were this close man like the punt returner right after he gets tackled one more block we were this close we could have done it Danny have you ever thought about if they drafted Herbert my answer is yes Ron's was no mine's yes I think about it all the time I think about it every hour of every day and a lot on Sundays during the fall yeah mostly on Sundays during the fall but maybe that'll change now that the locals have Jaden Daniels