Acme Packing Company
First of all, I’d like to thank Andrew York of our sister site Hogs Haven, which covers the Washington Commanders, for sharing his time with us for this week’s edition of Five Questions With the Enemy. If you want to read the companion article where York asked me questions about the Green Bay Packers and this Thursday Night Football matchup, you can read it HERE.
1. Aside from quarterback Jayden Daniels, how many true “you have to account for this guy on every play” type of players do you think the Washington Commanders have?
Jayden Daniels is certainly the biggest one. I don’t know if you have to account for a left tackle on every play given that you can just send pressure from the other direction, but if we’re talking about blue chip players, I think LT Laremy Tunsil is a borderline blue chip player. WR Terry McLaurin, LB Bobby Wagner, and LB Frankie Luvu were all named AP 2nd Team All Pro last year as well, so they deserve mentions in this conversation, though again I would probably classify them as borderline blues rather than true blues.
2. How would you describe this offense to someone who isn’t familiar with Kliff Kingsbury’s work in Washington? At the college level and with the Cardinals, he was more of a spread offense coach than what you generally see in the NFL. Has he changed that up or is he still spreading defenses out?
It’s a mistake to think he runs an Air Raid offense because that’s what he ran in college. With the Cardinals and now with the Commanders, he actually runs a more traditional play-action NFL offense that borrows Air Raid concepts. The biggest difference is that his Air Raid offense was very pass heavy, whereas his NFL offense has been very run heavy. The Commanders had the 5th highest run rate last season, which is remarkable considering how bad our defense was for most of the season and how much we needed to score. With the Cardinals, he used primarily gap scheme blocking, but with the Commanders he seems to have introduced some zone blocking as well, which may be a contribution from Run Game Coordinator Anthony Lynn (formerly of Shanahan’s 49ers). He also likes to use lots of misdirection in his run game, as showcased with his use of two RBs and motion out of pistol:
The main ways in which his offense borrows from the Air Raid is by primarily running out of shotgun and pistol formation and going no huddle/up tempo much of the time in order to wear down defenses and prevent substitutions. He also maintains static sides of the field for his WRs most of the time (e.g. Terry McLaurin will usually line up on the left, though he could be playing X or Z receiver) to minimize how much they run and avoid exhausting them with all the up-tempo plays. He also features lots of RPOs and screen...
