A trade isn’t always a welcomed thing for a player being moved from one team to another. However, guard Ereck Flowers is excited to be returning to Washington after the Football Team traded for him in a deal with the Miami Dolphins on Tuesday.
“I’m very excited and anxious to get back up there because I love the O-line room and I already had a good relationship with coach John Matsko as well,” Flowers told NFL reporter Josina Anderson. “This is best for me.”
Flowers played for Washington in 2019, though under a different coaching staff. Jay Gruden was let go as head coach at the end of the season with Ron Rivera taking over the helm last year. Though Matsko, the Washington offensive line coach, hasn’t had a chance to coach Flowers yet in the NFL, he worked him out prior to the NFL Draft in 2015 as part of the Carolina Panthers’ evaluation process when Matsko was on Rivera’s staff there, per Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post. That’s where the existing relationship between Flowers and Matsko stems from.
Washington and Miami swapped a pair of late seventh-round picks in moving Flowers back to D.C. After spending the first four years of his career with the New York Giants, Flowers has bounced from team to team in the three seasons since. He played one season for Jacksonville in 2018, the season in Washington in 2019 and then one year with the Dolphins last year.