Hogs Haven
A collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders
The Commanders have used no-huddle all season but right off the bat, the Lions were huddling and because of that, were lining up late. There was even a play when corner Terrion Arnold almost didn’t see a receiver lined up outside of him until the last second. That can’t happen. Glenn likely had some complicated blitz calls that he felt were better communicated in the huddle but the Lions didn’t have much of a shot when they struggled to line up in time. This was a problem before they were hit by injuries — before Week 15, they ranked 29th in success rate against no-huddle snaps.
I had doubts about Kingsbury based on his offense as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. His offense was too basic, too horizontal, and the plays didn’t build on each other. He has adjusted with the Commanders. An example is receiver alignment. With the Cardinals, receivers hardly moved to different spots because it’s an old Air Raid offense principle to have receivers master running routes from one spot and it’s hard to move around too much when running no-huddle.
From Weeks 1-12, McLaurin only lined to the right of the formation on 14 percent of the plays. Against the Eagles, he had to deal with an unfavorable matchup against their best corner, Quinyon Mitchell, the entire game rather than move around to create favorable matchups. From Weeks 13 to the divisional round, McLaurin lined up to the right of the formation on 24 percent of his snaps. It’s a small adjustment but makes it more difficult for defenses to take McLaurin out of the game with double teams or matching him up with their best corner.
Kingsbury has called a couple of great games. One was against the Buccaneers, who rank 23rd in defensive EPA per dropback, and the other against an injury-riddled Lions defense.
Breaking down how Kingsbury’s schemes helped spark the Commanders run game to life vs Detroit.
[W]hat changed for the Commanders to suddenly be able to run the ball? Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury and his staff put together a strong plan that worked perfectly against a vulnerable Lions defense. They knew the Lions were likely to try and blitz a lot. That’s what they like to do normally, but with the number of injuries they have, the Lions had been leaning even more heavily into blitzes to try and force mistakes from the opposition. So Kingsbury and his staff played into that desire to blitz with run-pass options (RPOs).
This was Brian Robinson’s first carry of the game. You can see the Commanders call an RPO with two separate plays packaged together. The primary...
