2025 Washington Commanders- All Things Offense

I think Kirk builds in man beaters to most(?) passing plays (as I believe most OCs do), but setting that aside...

It’s interesting, because to some extent Lane, Yankoff, JCM and even McCaffrey all have plus traits that could translate to an ability to beat man coverage, but 1) they obviously haven’t proven themselves on that front, and 2) I think they all carry question marks as to whether they could eventually excel at it.
Looks like we have to start sending Jaylin Lane on fly patterns to really put pressure on the opposing safeties and open up the underneath stuff. He is a fast, DJax kind of player.
 

Mariota looked sooo comfortable out there. As someone mentioned earlier, I could easily see him tagging along with Kliff if Kliff were to get a HC job. Great system fit, but also knows it well (fast-tracking implementation), and is a really good dude. I think he’d be a good bridge qb at minimum. I’d be sad to see him go, but happy to see he him get a chance to start.
 
If he has a sports hernia could be done for the year.
 
So let me make sure I have this right:

We're going into this game, on the road, without our Day One starting QB, RB, top two outside WRs, one of our edge rushers and a starting safety? Am I missing anyone?

Someone wrap Ertz up in bubble-wrap for the rest of the week.
 
If terry is out for the season the contract extension will turn into a really bad contract for the team.
 
If terry is out for the season the contract extension will turn into a really bad contract for the team.
captain obvious hotels.com GIF
 
Mariota looked sooo comfortable out there. As someone mentioned earlier, I could easily see him tagging along with Kliff if Kliff were to get a HC job. Great system fit, but also knows it well (fast-tracking implementation), and is a really good dude. I think he’d be a good bridge qb at minimum. I’d be sad to see him go, but happy to see he him get a chance to start.
I’ve been thinking the same thing lately. Also, makes me more worried we don’t have a proper contingency there at QB3. I’m sure we can find someone in FA, which I hope we do. Kliff is still cashing checks from Arizona through next season I believe, so he may wait for the perfect opportunity to pop up. Not sure which teams will be in the market for a new HC, but I could see the giant and I’m hoping it’s not them.
 
If terry is out for the season the contract extension will turn into a really bad contract for the team.

Him being in after signing a new contract was actually very predictable. It almost had to happen.
 
Terry is an asshole for demanding money, then not being in football shape and getting predictably injured

I'm not worried about Kliff leaving. We'll be fine. I also don't think he wants to go.

Our OL coach needs to start catching some heat and I'm kinda shocked he hasn't. It was everyone's least favorite hire.
 
Terry is an asshole for demanding money, then not being in football shape and getting predictably injured

I'm not worried about Kliff leaving. We'll be fine. I also don't think he wants to go.

Our OL coach needs to start catching some heat and I'm kinda shocked he hasn't. It was everyone's least favorite hire.


Heat for? If anything he's earned a lot of grace with how well the line performed last year. Our run game has performed very well in 2 / 3 of the games we've had. We've faced an absolute gauntlet of a start to the season if we're looking at D-line opponents. Things are going to be very different over the next 5 weeks. Add to the fact that his rookie RT went from struggling mightily to being credited with 0 pressures this past weekend. We're also going to be getting back a Pro Bowl level guard in the next 3 - 4 weeks and this O-line is going to end up being a strength as the season goes on.
 
I still maintain that we have had scheme problems in the running game, and last week was a really fun aberration that I will be ecstatic to see repeated multiple times, but I will also be surprised. Last year I think against the Titans, we saw Kliff do something similar - and then go right back to his usual routines.

Here is a blurb from an NYT article about the game:
**
But Kingsbury mixed it up a bit, using different personnel groupings and formations. The Commanders are a heavy 11 personnel (one RB, one TE) team, using that grouping on 73.1 percent of their plays in the first two weeks, according to TruMedia. But on Sunday, they were in 11 personnel for only 42.6 percent of their plays. They were in 12 personnel (one RB, two TEs) for 13.0 percent of their plays and 21 personnel (two RBs, one TE) for 5.6 percent. They were in 21 personnel for Jeremy McNichols’ 60-yard touchdown run.

And for one play, Washington was in 13 personnel. Tight ends Zach Ertz, Sinnott and Colson Yankoff were all on the field for Luke McCaffrey’s 43-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter.
**
The article talked about how this game, with all of the injuries, Kliff was mixing up his formations much more than usual.
Uhh, why not in other games?

It's just that Kliff gets very confident, I think, in what JD can do and it's like a kid in a candy store, but the problem is you can't always dictate against the best teams. You really have to look at mixing things up and keeping those great defenses (think Eagles) on their toes. Kliff did against the Raiders (and last year against the Titans). I would like to see some of this kind of attack done with patience (even down 7 or 14 in the first half or third quarter). This idea that at 14 down prior to the fourth quarter, we can't still be run-focused.... this is kind of how I have interpreted a lot of what I've seen from Kliff.
 
I still maintain that we have had scheme problems in the running game, and last week was a really fun aberration that I will be ecstatic to see repeated multiple times, but I will also be surprised. Last year I think against the Titans, we saw Kliff do something similar - and then go right back to his usual routines.

Here is a blurb from an NYT article about the game:
**
But Kingsbury mixed it up a bit, using different personnel groupings and formations. The Commanders are a heavy 11 personnel (one RB, one TE) team, using that grouping on 73.1 percent of their plays in the first two weeks, according to TruMedia. But on Sunday, they were in 11 personnel for only 42.6 percent of their plays. They were in 12 personnel (one RB, two TEs) for 13.0 percent of their plays and 21 personnel (two RBs, one TE) for 5.6 percent. They were in 21 personnel for Jeremy McNichols’ 60-yard touchdown run.

And for one play, Washington was in 13 personnel. Tight ends Zach Ertz, Sinnott and Colson Yankoff were all on the field for Luke McCaffrey’s 43-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter.
**
The article talked about how this game, with all of the injuries, Kliff was mixing up his formations much more than usual.
Uhh, why not in other games?

It's just that Kliff gets very confident, I think, in what JD can do and it's like a kid in a candy store, but the problem is you can't always dictate against the best teams. You really have to look at mixing things up and keeping those great defenses (think Eagles) on their toes. Kliff did against the Raiders (and last year against the Titans). I would like to see some of this kind of attack done with patience (even down 7 or 14 in the first half or third quarter). This idea that at 14 down prior to the fourth quarter, we can't still be run-focused.... this is kind of how I have interpreted a lot of what I've seen from Kliff.


We rushed for 220 against the Giants and 201 against the Raiders. The ONE single series we saw of the starters in the Preseason included ZERO pass attempts. Why are we acting like running the ball is a foreign gameplan?
 
We rushed for 220 against the Giants and 201 against the Raiders. The ONE single series we saw of the starters in the Preseason included ZERO pass attempts. Why are we acting like running the ball is a foreign gameplan?
The Green Bay game was nightmarishly bad. If rushing is not "foreign" to the gameplan, when you have a guy who has rushed 4 times, averaged 4+ yards a carry, and had a long of 5 (meaning there was no big outlier in that tiny sample)... and you are within two scores for the first 3 quarters...
That Math doesn't add up.

As for the two games - the Raiders game, rushing was truly the gameplan. That's what I posted above. The alignments, the formations - those rushes were 100% planned.

That was just not the case with the Giants game. As usual, a significant chunk of the rushing was with Jayden.
10 rushes for 86 yards from JCM. True, though, if you add all 3 RBs together you do get to 20 rushes, and even if there were a lot of RPOs that are not truly designed runs, I can give you that one.

So in our current small sample size, we have 2 good rushing games (or 1 excellent and 1 good; I don't want to equate those two gameplans), and then 1 horrendous. I mean, atrocious. I simply don't get the thinking in what we saw in GB. Frankly, if we had run the ball more, Jayden may not get injured; the running game protects the QB in many ways.

My problem here is not going to be solved with 2 good rushing games and 1 horrible one. My problem comes more from last year, a full year, of watching the playcalls not be great on the rushing side, and watching that very frank (and refreshingly honest) interview from Kliff where he talked about how he needs to be reminded to run the ball sometimes because he forgets. I will need to see more than what I've seen so far, and I would especially like to see it with JD5 under center.

Again: the alignments, formations... they were extremely run oriented against the Raiders. Like the Titans game last year, these were aberrations in the larger picture. Not comparable to the other games we've seen. Immensely successful, and against average or poor opposition, as if we are scared to run against tougher teams (because I maintain, we hardly try, especially when the game is within reach).
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Help Users

You haven't joined any rooms.

    You haven't joined any rooms.
    Top