NFC Notes: Terry McLaurin, Russell Wilson, Commanders, Eagles, Giants

Commanders

Commanders GM Adam Peters said the team plans on extending WR Terry McLaurin in the near future.

“The short answer is we want to make Terry a Commander for a long time,” Peters said, via NY Times.

Peters believes that McLaurin’s best football is still yet ahead of him.

“He’s a great Commander. He got better and better as the season went on, not only as a player, but as a leader,” Peters said. “It was really impressive to see him grow so much. You think of Terry as this pristine, polished player, but then he got even better, so it’s really cool. Everybody can get better, even the great ones.”

McLaurin added that he’s loved to play under HC Dan Quinn, who allows the players to be themselves.

“DQ, first and foremost, he’s a leader of men. Playing for a coach that allows you to be yourself within the culture is extremely empowering,” McLaurin said. “I’m sure he’s learned a lot about me. I’ve learned a lot about him, and I’ve learned a lot about this team and the culture that we’ve been building. He’s allowed us to drive this car this season in the eyes of how we want this Commanders team to look like.”

Eagles

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie explained their offseason approach is to put themself in a position to retain young players going forward. 

“We want to win and we want to win big. The way to win consistently and to win big is to plan for the contracts you’re going to have to give to your best young players, and we want to retain our best young players as we go forward. It’s impossible if you draft well to do that. We want to make sure we’re aggressive at being able to sign players early that we think are core players for the future,” Lurie said, via Zach Berman. 

Lurie points out that better teams typically have a “surplus” of players to re-sign. 

“In the NFL, the way the salary cap system works is it’s based on a certain percentage. The average team should not have a surplus of players they have to sign. When you’re an excellent team, you should certainly have a surplus of players that you have on your roster.”

Lurie hopes they can continue drafting well to keep their roster young and competitive. 

“So my hope is we will always draft well, we will always have a surplus and we will always continue to figure out who and who and what opportunities you need to try to sign players 12 months out, 24 months out and prepare for that so that you’re never in a situation of drafting an excellent young player and preferring to keep them and have no way to keep them.”

Giants

When asked if Russell Wilson has fallen off the proverbial “cliff” with his career, HC Brian Daboll responded that he’s seen examples of ways Wilson can help their team and how their system can benefit the veteran quarterback. 

“In terms of the cliff, until you’re with the players, coaching them — I’m looking forward to working with Russ,” Daboll said, via Paul Schwartz of the New York Post. “I’ve watched him, I’ve watched what I think he can do well, I’ve watched stuff that maybe we can help him with and I’ve watched stuff that maybe he can help us with.”

Daboll still thinks Wilson can extend plays with his mobility despite not being as athletic as in previous years. 

“Obviously at Seattle, very, very productive and then he’s been on a few different teams the last few years,” Daboll said. “Look forward to working with him. He’s been a good player, he’s got good leadership traits to him. Smart. He’s played a lot of football. He’s athletic. He’s a little older, so he’s maybe not as athletic, but he certainly had ability to use his legs, extend plays, create explosive plays, phenomenal deep-ball thrower. Has created a bunch of explosive plays in scoring points for his team and does a good job of making good decisions with the football.”

Wilson believes Daboll has proven to have an “attack mentality” as a coach. 

“What I really like about Dabes is just his mentality, his attack mentality,” Wilson said. “We haven’t been able to talk a whole bunch of ball yet, but I’ve been able to see a bunch over the years and understand who he is.”