Commanders offense slowly revealing real opportunities
What have we learned about the new Commanders offense based from the words of the players running it.
We’re about halfway through the on-field portion of Washington’s offseason workouts and some things are starting to become apparent. Like what? Like motion and multiplicity on the offensive side of the ball.
Terry McLaurin explained it best: multiple formations and a lot of movement.
All of these things point to a better offense for Jayden Daniels to run. Multiplicity in formations will force opposing defenses to adjust their personnel on the field. Motion will allow Daniels to identify coverage looks pre-snap.
Motion will also allow McLaurin to operate from different parts of the field and could free up the remaining group of wide receivers from being strict X/Z receivers.
Perhaps most telling from McLaurin’s insightful comments: the stem vs the tree. Wide receivers can run a tremendous amounts of different routes, even more than the old 1 through 9 route tree suggests. But they all start from the same stem.
The problem in Kliff Kingsbury’s offense was there wasn’t a ton of variation in the routes. The fact that McLaurin ran a hitch on nearly 40 percent of his routes rate last season is preposterous.
Motion. Play action. Route variance and complementary routes. All positive steps for the offense. For Terry. For Jayden.
Another interesting comment I heard came from Josh Conerly. As much as new Commanders offensive coordinator David Blough is going to bring in new concepts to the offense (obviously) he also mentioned that some of the previous concepts will remain in the playbook.
That’s good. Under Kingsbury there were good elements of the Commanders offense.
So I asked Conerly, the second-year right tackle, what from last year he’d like to see continue.
“I think we were really good running outside zone,” Conerly said, before adding, “we just didn’t do it enough.”
Watch the full interview here at the 13:30 mark.
Conerly’s words are telling here. Washington ran the ball pretty well last year, particularly on outside zone rushes. They finished fourth league wide in rush yards and averaged 4.7 yards-per-carry.
But those total numbers are a bit skewed by the run game of Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota. The eye tests reveals the Commanders didn’t run the ball often enough last year.
Under Blough, expect a much more consistent run game, and a run game that doesn’t look different than the pass. People often discuss the marriage of the run and pass game but that’s hard to do when working almost exclusively out of the shotgun formation.
Getting Daniels under center more - which will absolutely be a feature of the 2026 offense - will also help the run game. Play action comes from under center, which will also help the run game.
Offensive linemen always believe the offense should run the ball more. That’s the nature of the position. In Washington, they’re right.
Any thoughts on Burks? I’ve heard he’s really showed flashes
This is all very exciting! Any impressions/observations re our CB room? Who is lining up? Who is working together?