The Commanders had former Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker in for a visit this month, but head coach Ron Rivera’s message on Thursday was that nothing has changed in regard to the team’s feelings about their current quarterbacks.
Rivera said at a press conference that “you never know” what will happen during a draft when asked about the visit with Hooker and that “situations and circumstances may dictate” a change in approach as things unfold, but he was emphatic that the team is happy with Sam Howell and Jacoby Brissett as their quarterbacks.
“As far as the quarterback position goes, we feel very comfortable with the guys we have,” Rivera said, via Bryan Manning of USAToday.com. “If you think about it, we have a young guy in Sam that coming out at one point was rated very high. We were fortunate, we believe, to get him where we got him. We got Jacoby Brissett coming off in what we believe was one of his better years as a player. It is one of those things that is funny because, typically, when you get quarterbacks, it is when they are coming off a tough time. We feel good about what we did there as well, and we will see what happens.”
Rivera acknowledged that the team isn’t going to put all of its cards on the table, but moving for a quarterback early in next week’s draft would represent a major shift from all the hints the team has sent about its plans this offseason.