The coming season will require, perhaps more than any other in the history of the game, the ability to quickly identify and select potential replacement players from other teams (via trade), other teams’ practice squads (via signing to the active roster), the waiver wire (via priority determined by record) or available to anyone in free agency. Washington, less than three weeks before the start of training camp, has fired its two top employees from the department responsible for quickly identifying and selecting such players.
Les Carpenter of the Washington Post reports that the team has fired Alex Santos and Richard Mann II. Santos served as the director of the pro personnel department, and Mann worked as the assistant director.
No reason was reported for the decision, and the team declined to comment on the situation.
Santos joined the team as a pro personnel assistant in 2006. He had served in his current role since 2014. Mann was promoted into his current job three years ago; he had been with the team for a decade.
The team either will have to promote from within and then backfill the vacated scouting positions, hire outsiders who are currently unattached to any team, or ask front-office employees to do double duty. Whatever the team chooses, it’s hardly an ideal time to be finding someone else to perform such important functions as the NFL gets ready for football in a pandemic.