2025 Washington Commanders Camp / Preseason

[HOF44]

Can never have too many CB’s, that would need to be a 4th from a poor team for me to be truly interested, Noah I is a great depth piece for a contender like us

Do they love Vigers?

Nope. Vigors just waived.

 

[Hail Raiser]

I wouldn't trade Noah for a late day 3 pick. We gave him his shot last year, keep him along for the ride. He's part of our success.

 

[RandyHolt]

Noah got injured last game. We can sugar coat it and guess it was just a harmless stinger.

Street DBs usually seem to come in and do just fine, regardless of any depth or injury concerns. You dont even notice them many times until they are in game action.

In AP we trust.

 

[Conn]

Noah got injured last game. We can sugar coat it and guess it was just a harmless stinger.

Street DBs usually seem to come in and do just fine, regardless of any depth or injury concerns. You dont even notice them many times until they are in game action.

In AP we trust.

The only time I can ever remember signing a successful street FA CB after the season started, and having it work out well, was Ronald Darby for that one season. In recent history our DB’s have mostly been terrible and giving up big plays was our calling card. It’s really not a good position to be in.

And Darby, like Noah I, was a salvaged former high pick who didn’t work out after his first contract. Sometimes you can salvage that athleticism for a time

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

The only time I can ever remember signing a successful street FA CB after the season started, and having it work out well, was Ronald Darby for that one season. In recent history our DB’s have mostly been terrible and giving up big plays was our calling card. It’s really not a good position to be in.

And Darby, like Noah I, was a salvaged former high pick who didn’t work out after his first contract. Sometimes you can salvage that athleticism for a time

I think you're thinking of Will Blackmon. Pretty sure we signed Ronald Darby during the normal FA period in March/April of that year.

 

[Skinfanjon]

I think you're thinking of Will Blackmon. Pretty sure we signed Ronald Darby during the normal FA period in March/April of that year.

Nah it was Darby. He failed in Philly, we signed him in FA, had a solid year and people on ES were begging to give him $10M a year. Then he went to Denver for 3/$30M and was awful again.

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

Nah it was Darby. He failed in Philly, we signed him in FA, had a solid year and people on ES were begging to give him $10M a year. Then he went to Denver for 3/$30M and was awful again.

Reread what Conn wrote. He's talking about CB's signed off the street after the season had started. We signed Darby on April 6th of 2020 (I just checked).

 

[Skinfanjon]

Reread what Conn wrote. He's talking about CB's signed off the street after the season had started. We signed Darby on April 6th of 2020 (I just checked).

Ah thanks, I did miss that part. I think he probably frankensteined them. His other point was Darby was a failed high pick (50th) and Blackmon wasn’t (115th).

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

What exactly is your point then? Every new coordinator has no track record, and it takes a while to learn whether they’re good. That’s the stage we’re in. With no track record at DC all we have to go by is the rest of his resume, which got him the job. Horrible roster year 1, we’ll see if he improves with the roster in year 2. We don’t have enough information to judge whether he was a good hire or not, so acting like his performance last year was evidence of being an unqualified hire just has no backing. Every coordinator ever promoted goes through this process. Maybe he sucks, maybe he’s good. I’m not even arguing that he’s good btw. I’m simply saying that an established DC failing with that poor defensive roster last year would lead to equally worried but different criticisms of the hire: good ol’ boys club, retread hire, no new ideas, conservative Quinn, etc.

I'm simply stating that I'd feel a lot better about our DC if he had a track record as a DC. Finding an experienced and successful defensive coordinator does not mean Jack Del Rio, it's done all the time. Not saying these people were available but Steve Spagnola, Jim Shwartz, Vic Fangio, Wade Phillips as well as other respected defensive coordinators held that position on multiple teams before they got to their current teams.

You appear to be arguing that this is never done and promoting assistants is the only way to acquire a DC when this is simply not true. If we had a solid DC and the defense played poorly then yes the move may be criticized by some but most would understand that it would be mostly on the players. But when the defense is poor and the DC has no experience and really didn't get marginal players to perform better that raises questions.

 

[Conn]

I'm simply stating that I'd feel a lot better about our DC if he had a track record as a DC. Finding an experienced and successful defensive coordinator does not mean Jack Del Rio, it's done all the time. Not saying these people were available but Steve Spagnola, Jim Shwartz, Vic Fangio, Wade Phillips as well as other respected defensive coordinators held that position on multiple teams before they got to their current teams.

You appear to be arguing that this is never done and promoting assistants is the only way to acquire a DC when this is simply not true. If we had a solid DC and the defense played poorly then yes the move may be criticized by some but most would understand that it would be mostly on the players. But when the defense is poor and the DC has no experience and really didn't get marginal players to perform better that raises questions.

I think we’re mostly talking past each other, because that’s not really what I meant either. My contention is that the CB crew was so poor last year that no DC would have done well, so we’d just have a whole host of other complaints about Quinn’s choice of DC. With Whitt it’s lack of experience and questions about how qualified he is. With a proven veteran it would be the things I already listed above. The main point is that nobody would have done well last year so we’d be in wait and see mode regardless, so the angst about Whitt just feels misplaced. If he sucks, we’ll find out in the next two years and Quinn will move on imo (and likely bring in an experienced guy so as not to risk it again).

Every good DC ever was at one time a question mark type guy who was promoted. So hopefully that’s the stage we’re in, finding out we’ve got a good one. But I’ve got a ton of questions about Whitt as well, so I hate casting myself as his defender here 😂 I really just didn’t agree with what I perceived to be your point about unproven/“unqualified” hires vs vet DC hires in the original post that started all this, that’s all

 

[CuredFromBatteredFanSyndrome]

I would argue that the defense played greater than the sum of its parts last season. Don’t get me wrong, I had little trust they could get a stop. But the defense often had pieces in the right place and guys simply failed to make a play and/or worse, give up the big play.

 

[Conn]

I would argue that the defense played greater than the sum of its parts last season. Don’t get me wrong, I had little trust they could get a stop. But the defense often had pieces in the right place and guys simply failed to make a play and/or worse, give up the big play.

It certainly felt more like this than it ever did during the Rivera years (when it felt like everyone was always out of place and miscommunicating in the secondary like they’d never even met before). Less talented guys were being beat, but they weren’t totally lost most of the time like in the past.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

my problem is I have no feel for the defense whatsoever. The only time the starting defense played at all it looked reasonably good against a very good Bengals offense.

For like 2 drives. And even then there were players held out

I just have no idea what we’re going to get either scheme wise or player wise.

I generally think the offense will be good. But I have no feel whatsoever for the defense.

It could be good. It could be bad. It could be average.

I have no idea. I don’t even have a guess.

I have hope. But that’s it.

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

Oh I have a guess but you aren't gonna like it.

 

[Chris]

Jeebus F’n Christmas

 

[Primus Porcus]

I don't think we have any real clue about what the defense will look like when you don't have your 'QB' of the defense on the field. I imagine we will see a largely better level of execution when Wagner is out there, if for no other reason that he's aligning guys correctly. We had guys like Duke Riley, a street add, Jordan Magee, a second year player who has played as many snaps in the NFL as I have, and Madrano, a rookie, anchoring our LB corps this preseason. Luvu was in there but I don't believe he was playing middle... He was more of an OLB / pass rusher when I saw him but maybe i'm wrong?

I also don't believe the defense will be 'full steam' week 1 either. It's going to take a couple weeks to truly get everyone on the same page... this is one of the 'issues' with sitting guys in the preseason. We likely will look rough the first couple weeks, especially considering the quick turnaround from week 1 to week 2, but I imagine as things settle down the defense will look very different than it did in the preseason.

 

[Always Commander Never Captain]

Don't forget the "starting LB" in the 1st pre-season game was Dominique Hampton, who might have been the 1st roster cut we had. That was a "can he hack it or not" test the team gave him. He couldn't, they moved on.

We have seen very little of our defense, especially all of the funky sub-packages that beatwriters/coaches have talked about using only pure pass rushers on the LoS. I think it was Luvu, Armstrong, Miller, plus either a 4th Edge or maybe 1 DT (Payne). We know they have some funky sub-packages with the 2nd safety spot and possibly DIME personnel. But we haven't seen that yet.

Quan Martin, Lattimore, Sainristil, Amos +

• Normally it's Will Harris
• But supposedly there are sub-packages where we sub out Harris for either a 4th CB with only 1 Safety, or 3 CB's + 1 Safety + an extra LB instead, or 3 CB's + 3 Safeties and -1 LB.

The point is, we supposedly have a few pure pass rush packages that should feel unique (compared to last season). We obviously did not see that in the pre-season. Week 1 game planning was hidden in the pre-season.

 

[Bulldog]

My feeling is at this point that Luvu is going to be the focus of the pass rush and by season's end is going to end up with 10 plus sacks.

That's one reason Whitt and Quinn were so willing to let Dante Fowler leave in free agency. Unlike Fowler, Luvu is more willing to play to his responsibilities and play the scheme. He's also a better run defender at 236 than Fower was at 260.

Matter of attitude.

Watch Washington run the ball right at Fowler when he is on the field for Dallas.

 

[Primus Porcus]

My feeling is at this point that Luvu is going to be the focus of the pass rush and by season's end is going to end up with 10 plus sacks.

That's one reason Whitt and Quinn were so willing to let Dante Fowler leave in free agency. Unlike Fowler, Luvu is more willing to play to his responsibilities and play the scheme. He's also a better run defender at 236 than Fower was at 260.

Matter of attitude.

Watch Washington run the ball right at Fowler when he is on the field for Dallas.

I also think it's because they're more confident that the system was more responsible for Fowler's resurgence, than some notion that he had a breakout year when he was 30.

They likely think / know it's able to be replicated

 

[Bulldog]

I just go back to that Packers game where Dallas' front seven had the ball run down their throats and thought of the players like Fowler and Demarcus Lawrence that viewed themselves as pass rush specialists refusing to stick their shoulders in there and play for the team.