The Washington Football Team hires Martin Mayhew as its new general manager, a source told ESPN on Thursday, adding another experienced voice to help coach Ron Rivera.
Mayhew interviewed Rivera on Jan. 16 and has long been considered a strong candidate. Among the other well-known interviews, Washington also spoke with Ryan Cowden, Tennessee’s vice president of player staff Nick Polk, Atlanta football operations director, and JoJo Wooden, the Los Angeles Chargers’ director of player staff.
Mayhew had a longer track record in front offices and also gained a reputation for knowing how to work with his head coaches. In Washington, Rivera is in power, so the general manager will report to him. He and Mayhew share the same agent, but Mayhew also brings a wealth of experience. He was Detroit’s general manager from 2008-15, after eight years in the Lions’ front office. Rivera has said he wanted someone who could also perform the administrative duties of the position.
Washington is also expected to hire former Carolina general manager Marty Hurney, although his role was not yet specified, according to a source. Those details were worked out on Thursday evening. ESPN had previously reported that Hurney was expected to become the GM of Washington after meeting Monday with Rivera, the chief power broker on the football side. Hurney was part of the group that hired Rivera in Carolina; he was fired in 2012 but returned in ’17 for Rivera’s last three seasons. Hurney covered the Washington franchise for the Washington Times in the late 1980s before joining the organization’s public relations group.
Mayhew was named Detroit’s GM in late 2008 after the Lions finished 0-16 that season. Detroit was 8-24 in its first two seasons. The Lions made the postseason in 2011 and ’14, the only two years in which they had a winning record during his tenure. Overall, Detroit went 41-63 in its seven and a half seasons.
Mayhew hired Jim Caldwell in 2014 to replace the first coach he signed, Jim Schwartz. Detroit fired Mayhew midway through the 2015 season. But his recruitment to Caldwell paid off: Detroit finished with three winning seasons in Caldwell’s four years with two playoff appearances. It marked the first time Detroit had posted consecutive winning seasons since 1994-95.
One person who coached under Mayhew called him “smart, analytical, level-headed” and someone who kept calm. He was able to have differences of opinion without dividing it. He also said that at times Mayhew lacked a gut feeling for players, but felt that that problem could be alleviated if someone else on his staff provided that quality.
Mayhew was the director of football for the New York Giants in 2016 before joining the San Francisco front office a year later. He served as a senior executive for two years and as a vice president of player staff for the past two years.
Mayhew played as a defender in Washington for four years and won a Super Bowl in the 1991 season. His time in Washington was sandwiched between one season in Buffalo and four in Tampa Bay.