Report: WFT Planning to Hire GM; Former 49ers, Texans and Panthers GMs Linked

Another general manager position has opened up in the NFL.

According to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, the Washington Football Team plans to fill the position for the upcoming season. The team has been operating without a designated general manager, instead opting for Vice President of Player Personnel Kyle Smith to take over those responsibilities alongside head coach Ron Rivera.

Per Rapoport, there are a number of candidates already lined up, including former Houston Texans GM Rick Smith, former Carolina Panthers GM Marty Hurney and San Francisco 49ers VP of player personnel Martin Mayhew, among others.

Rivera declined to discuss the vacancy when talking to reporters last week.

"I'm not going to talk about our GM situation," Rivera said. "All that stuff, that personnel stuff, is going to be addressed after the season is over. We're focusing on the playoff run."

Mayhew is in his second season in his current role with the 49ers after two years as the organization's senior personnel executive. He previously worked as the director of football operations/special projects with the New York Giants and brings general manager experience after parts of eight seasons in the role with the Detroit Lions.

In Detroit, he helped engineer a 10-win campaign in 2011 and drafted franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford.

Meanwhile, per the Associated Press, Smith has also interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons, who are looking to fill the hole left by Thomas Dimitroff, who was let go with head coach Dan Quinn following the team's 0-5 start. Smith held the GM position in Houston from 2006-17, when he left the team to help care for his wife following her breast cancer diagnosis.

When he was appointed to the role in 2006, he became the youngest GM at the age of 36 and just the second Black general manager in the league. Under his tenure, the Texans went 92-100, with 39 Pro Bowl selections headlined by three-time Defensive Player of the Year J.J. Watt, who the team drafted in 2011.

And the Carolina Panthers fired Hurney on Monday, ending a partnership with the organization that began in 1998. He was named GM in 2002 and replaced in 2012, but he returned to the job in 2017 on an interim basis and assumed the full-time role following that year. He was responsible for two Super Bowl-bound teams in XXXVIII and 50.

Rivera was hired last December and has brought Washington to a 6-8 record this season. The squad could clinch a playoff spot if it defeats the Panthers on Sunday and the New York Giants fall to the Baltimore Ravens.