Hogs Haven
Washington Post (paywall)
The trip had a bitter ending for Sainristil, who muffed a punt late in the fourth quarter of the Commanders’ 16-13 overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday in the NFL’s first game in Spain, but the hour he had spent teaching the sport he loves to children in a foreign country resonated. He could relate to those kids.
Sainristil, 25, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He immigrated to the Boston area when he was 7 months old, but his parents had lived in Haiti for their entire lives and were unfamiliar with football. He later learned about the sport through an older cousin who had grown up in the United States, but his parents thought it was too dangerous and denied his request to play.
Sainristil’s parents eventually relented, and he has been hooked ever since. He relished the chance to give a group of kids in a country where knowledge about football remains limited early exposure to the game.
“Opportunities like this just show you it’s all about just having fun at the end of the day. Take the rules and stuff out of everything and just have fun playing a sport with your friends,” Sainristil said. “Just seeing how much they’re enjoying it is cool.
A to Z Sports
The best move Quinn can make is by bringing in a younger, defensive-minded guy similar to Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, and adjusting to the league, not just another familiar face like Raheem Morris if he’s fired from the Atlanta Falcons. Whether that’s a coach in college, or someone on the rise in the NFL as an assistant or position coach, Quinn needs a fresh face, and not just another one of his guys from the past. Unless it’s Al Harris with the Chicago Bears, but that seems like a big ask.
It worked when they brought in Kliff Kingsbury as offensive coordinator to work with Jayden Daniels and revamp the offense. The success was there last season, and who knows what it would’ve looked like this year if Jayden Daniels and Terry McLaurin had stayed healthy. Quinn has to realize that what he’s done in the past hasn’t worked, and a drastic change needs to happen.
The new defensive coordinator needs to lay out his blueprint
Finding the right guy, which I will go more in depth on this week, is just the beginning of it all, and that’s when the work really starts. This is the most important offseason for Peters since he joined the Commanders, and he has to work with the new defensive coordinator to rebuild the defense. The new guy would come in, evaluate the roster, see who he likes and what role they would have...
