Hogs Haven
Editor’s note: Each day, Hogs Haven compiles a collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East, the NFL and sports in general, with a sprinkling of other stuff. Enjoy!
Sports Boom
The NFC East might be deeper and better than it’s been in a long time, which could be problematic for Quinn, and after 10 teams made coaching changes last year, the competition for the best and brightest candidates won’t be as steep this winter in all likelihood.
And the reality is, inexperienced owners tend to have a short fuse with head coaches in this league.
“Keep an eye on (former Bills head coach) Sean McDermott there next year,” one longtime NFL personnel executive told SportsBoom. “Just remember who told you first.”
One general manager told me early this offseason that he believes the Commanders are seriously considering making a head coaching change this winter.
Bullock’s Film Room (subscription)
Blough said he wanted to use his lineman as weapons, so how might he use Conerly as one?
Earlier this offseason, new Commanders coordinator David Blough talked about using his young, athletic offensive lineman as “weapons”, specifically citing 2025 first round pick Josh Conerly Jr. Conerly had some ups and downs in his rookie year with a rough start followed by some encouraging development down the stretch. He’s been working all offseason with star left tackle Laremy Tunsil and as we saw at mini camp last week, that work is helping him improve his technique.
But as promising as Conerly is as a prospect, he’s still a right tackle. How exactly can an offense use a right tackle as a “weapon” as David Blough described? For some ideas on that, we can look to the offense that Blough is reportedly looking to base his 2026 Commanders attack on, the 2023 Detroit Lions. The 2023 Lions offense had a young Penei Sewell starting at right tackle for them. Sewell, like Conerly, was a first round pick out of Oregon as a very talented and athletic tackle prospect but a bit raw coming out. By 2023 though, he had developed into one of the better tackles in the league.
The Lions did a great job featuring Sewell in their offense in a variety of ways, making use of him as a “weapon” where other teams might see him as just an offensive lineman. It’s worth noting here that I’m not comparing Conerly to Sewell in terms of overall talent and skill, just that Blough might look to use Conerly in a similar fashion in this system
One of the more obvious answers here is the screen game. Screen games live and die by how well they are blocked. If you’re throwing a...
