Hogs Haven
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. Now, it’s time to take a closer look at Commanders seventh-round rookie running back Jacory “Bill” Croskey-Merritt, who showed a lot in the preseason, and showed even more in Washington’s regular-season opener against the New York Giants. Croskey-Merritt could be the explosive piece this offense has needed from the backfield.
Last season, the Washington Commanders offense under Kliff Kingsbury was an unexpected nightmare for every opponent to deal with. Of course, it helped quite a bit that Jayden Daniels had what might have been the greatest rookie season for any quarterback in pro football history — both as a thrower and as a runner — but it was also how Kingsbury deployed his weapons in backfield packages designed to create defensive confusion.
The Commanders were especially lethal in what I would call “Pistol Pony Misdirection” packages, where Daniels and multiple running backs would array themselves in ways that virtually guaranteed positive plays.
That said, while these types of runs were consistently positive, they weren’t generally explosive.
Per Next Gen Stats, Brian Robinson led the Commanders in the 2024 season with 46 runs out of Pistol (where the quarterback is three yards behind the center at the snap) for 212 yards, 4.6 yards per carry, five runs of 10 or more yards, and two touchdowns. Daniels was the most explosive runner in those packages with 32 attempts for 198 yards, 6.2 yards per carry, six runs of 10 or more yards, and a touchdown.
To put that into perspective, Bijan Robinson of the Atlanta Falcons led the NFL last season in runs out of Pistol with 194 carries, 923 yards, 4.8 yards per carry, 20 runs of 10 or more yards, and eight touchdowns. Saquon Barkley of the Philadelphia Eagles was right in the ballpark with 121 Pistol runs for 626 yards, 5.2 yards per carry, 15 runs of 10 or more yards, and four touchdowns.
If you want to build your run game to any large degree out of Pistol, you need the right weapons to make it go.
In the 2025 preseason, seventh-round rookie Jacory Croskey-Merritt out of Arizona started to look like a back who could make more of those opportunities than Robinson, or Austin Ekeler, or anybody else, could. Croskey-Merritt’s 11-carry, 46-yard, one touchdown game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 2 of the preseason made him a bit of a folk hero, but this was the preseason, and it was the Bengals defense, so who knew if any of it would kick over to the regular season?
The Commanders certainly had faith. They traded Robinson to the San Francisco 49ers on August 22, and put Croskey-Merritt behind Ekeler on the depth chart. As Ekeler is more of a do-it-all back with heavy receiving chops as opposed to a true sustaining piece of the offense — that was...
