Hogs Haven
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, and a sprinkling of other stuff
If I didn’t know anything before last season about Quinn and Kingsbury, the Commanders would be much higher on this list. Both knocked the ball out of the park. Quinn’s defense has evolved plenty from his days in Seattle and in Atlanta; it evolved again last season with a new chess piece in Frankie Luvu. Without an elite pass rusher or cover corner — usually non-negotiables for a playoff run — the Commanders got enough out of their defense to make the NFC Championship Game, in which they simply got outclassed.
But I’ve seen Quinn’s defense enough against the top offensive schemes — those of Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay and their ilk — to know he still struggles against teams that can add bodies to the line of scrimmage, stretch the defense horizontally in the running game and then rip play-action passes behind. Quinn’s status as a players-first coach and culture-setter is unimpeachable, but I’d like to see another season of this defense.
Similarly, I enjoyed Kingsbury’s 2024 efforts more than any other Kingsbury edition in the NFL. I’d just like to see it again, please, before I get too far over my skis.
The Commanders ran a college-inspired offense heavy on packaged plays that allowed them to get into great playcalls at the line of scrimmage. Their screen game was perfectly executed; their QB run game was always a danger. But we know from the past 10 to 15 years of football that collegiate, option-oriented offenses can hit an upper bound on complexity and struggle once defenses get keyed into tendencies — it happened to Kingsbury already in Arizona. Kingsbury stayed ahead of the curve last season, and I am cautiously optimistic for 2025. Emphasis on cautiously.
Adam Peters’ honeymoon in Washington ended on Thursday evening. While the general manager of the Commanders has deservedly been lauded for his work in rebuilding a moribund franchise and getting it all the way back to the NFC Championship Game in his first season in charge, Thursday’s trade request from star wide receiver Terry McLaurin is the first real conflict of the Peters era.
While the Commanders have moved on from veterans Kendall Fuller and Jonathan Allen during Peters’ two offseasons in charge, McLaurin might be the most popular holdover from the pre-Jayden Daniels days. In addition to being one of the remaining players who endured former team owner Daniel Snyder’s final years with the organization, McLaurin was consistently productive despite playing with...
