ASHBURN, Va. -- The moves and cleaning house at the Inova Sports Performance Center never really stops.
Friday evening, 106.7 The Fan's Grant Paulsen was first to report and Washington Football on SI.com has confirmed that the organization has let go of longtime equipment manager, Anders Buetel and Paul Kelly, who worked for the organization for 11 years on the coaching staff as the director of football operations.
Kelly was brought to the organization by Bruce Allen in 2010 and survived several coaching changes but Allen had always been in charge.
It was surprising that Kelly was retained by Ron Rivera when he took over and Allen was fired.
Sources have told us that Kelly was prepared at any moment including late in 2019 to be released, so certainly this is not a surprise in the big picture - despite what we were described a few weeks ago as a relationship that went better than expected.
Apparently -- it was not good enough.
The timing is beyond curious which leads to questions. Why did Ron Rivera and the WFT organization wait two full months into the offseason to let go of Kelly, who coordinated a lot of coaching and front-office business for the team?
They could have let him go last off-season or at any point over the last two months.
The same is true for Buetel, who replaced Brad Berlin and has been with the organization for over 20 years.
While everyone inside the building has been completely on edge for a long time -- our understanding is the timing surprised some, including Buetel.
Sources said that Ron Rivera and other members of the organization called Buetel to a conference room upstairs at the Inova Sports Performance Center and no real reason was given.
It's not known if both ex-employees had to sign non-disclosure agreements and what the exact reasons are for both releases, but the timing is certainly strange.
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