WFT GM Candidate Profile: Cowden

The Washington Football Team is looking for a general manager to help Ron Rivera. Will it be the Titans' VP of player personnel Ryan Cowden? The Cowden profile

ASHBURN, Va. -- The Washington Football Team's season came to an end on Saturday night. But for a team in rebuild-and-reload mode, there is no offseason. 

This week, they are reaching out to top candidates to officially interview for the general manager post alongside coach Ron Rivera.

Washington asked for permission to speak with former Lions GM and current 49ers executive Martin Mayhew. Our profile of the former WFT player is below ...

READ MORE: More On Martin Mayhew

We know that Ryan Cowden is on the wish list as well.

Cowden spent 16 years in Charlotte with the Panthers, preceding Ron Rivera and then working for the current WFT coach while holding the assistant college scouting director position and also serving as a national scout and senior college scout. 

He then moved to the Titans serving as both director and his current position. 

Cowden has been in the NFL for 21 years and clearly has a wealth of experience in terms of scouting. 

However, he does not have any general manager experience (which Mayhew and another top candidate, Marty Hurney, do) and he hasn't served as an assistant GM either. 

That's one of the knocks against Kyle Smith, currently the Washington vice president of player personnel, on why he will not likely get the position. 

Cowden and Smith have almost an exactly similar background with Cowden just having done it longer. 

On the one hand, it wouldn't make much sense to hire Cowden if Rivera is looking for an experienced figure in the GM role to handle the business and administrative duties of the general manager position. 

But because Cowden and Rivera have worked together over several seasons in Charlotte, he might be willing to overlook that, based on the relationship. We think that is especially so if they could add former Panthers GM Hurney into the fold along with Cowden to help transition the latter into the position. 

CONTINUE READING: Source: Rivera Has 2 Favorites As Washington