| Projected Record | 7-10 (ACTUAL: 4-8) |
| Weighted DVOA Offense* (2023) | 21st |
| Weighted DVOA Defense (2023) | 31st |
| Early Down DVOA (2022) | 1st Down – 22nd, 2nd Down – 26th |
| Explosive Play Rate (2022) | Offense – 24th (Run 25th, Pass 21st), Defense – 14th (Run 11th, Pass 16th) |
| Key Additions | Jacoby Brissett QB, Jamison Crowder WR, Byron Pringle WR, Andrew Wylie OT, Nick Gates IOL, Trent Scott IOL, Abdullah Anderson DI, Efe Obada EDGE, Cody Barton LB, |
| Key Departures | Taylor Heinicke QB, Carson Wentz QB, J.D. McKissic RB, Cam Sims WR, Wes Martin IOL, Trai Turner IOL, Nick Martin IOL, Wes Schweitzer IOL, Chase Roullier IOL, Andrew Norwell IOL, Chase Young EDGE, Montez Sweat EDGE, Cole Holcomb LB, Jon Bostic LB, Bobby McCain DB |
| Rookies to Watch | Ricky Stromberg IOL, Emmanuel Forbes CB, Jartavius Martin S |
Injury Report
On Injured Reserve: Dax Milne WR, Armani Rodgers TE, Ricky Stromberg IOL, Saahdiq Charles IOL, Efe Obada EDGE, De’Jon Harris LB, Jeremy Reaves S
Quarterback
Perhaps no game was watched more intently and feverishly by pundits this offseason than Sam Howell’s Week 18 game against the Dallas Cowboys. A rookie fifth-rounder, Howell had legitimate buzz for the first round in a year somewhat devoid of QB talent. Had 2021 not featured the likes of Justin Fields, Trey Lance, Mac Jones, and Trevor Lawrence, Howell might have left college during his first year of eligibility, and he likely would have landed with a team like the Commanders, Panthers, or Falcons in an Andy Dalton top-of-the-second type slot. In 2020 with UNC, Howell completed 68% of his passes for more than 3500 yards with 30 TDs to 7 INTs. Couple that with a stellar deep grade and the magic of youth, and you could certainly convince an NFL team that this was an ascending player who could be taught to read an NFL defense fairly quickly. Howell is also an above-average athlete, and you could talk yourself into him as a happy compromise on many of the deficiencies of that draft class. Instead, Howell went back to school and things got much worse. Five of his teammates went to the NFL Draft in 2020, including stud RBs Michael Carter Jr. and Javonte Williams, as well as top receiving targets Dyami Brown and Dazz Newsome. Without his favorite targets and an entire ground game apparatus, the 6’1” 220 pound QB was asked to essentially be the ground game, carrying the ball twice as often as 2020. The physical toll was tough on Howell, who is similar physically to Tua, and he suffered an injury to the non-throwing shoulder that weighed on him when he returned. At the end of a 6-7 campaign (a far cry from the 8-4 2020), Howell had 828 rushing yards and 11 TDs, which are certainly admirable numbers, but for a guy you don’t project to run much in the NFL, were a bit useless to NFL scouts. So Howell fell out of the 2nd round, where some saw him, and all the way down to pick number 144. Kenny Pickett was the only member of the class to crack the first round: Matt Corral, Desmond Ritter, and Malik Willis all made the 3rd while Bailey Zappe got picked in the 4th. Despite the lack of faith amongst NFL decision makers that Howell could hack it, the Commanders maintained that they had something in the QB, then 21-years-old, upon which to build. Howell finally got his shot after the team was eliminated from playoff contention and it had become clear that neither Carson Wentz or Taylor Heinicke was in the team’s long-term plans.
In that Week 18 game, Howell was very good. He completed 11 of his 19 passes for 168 yards and a score, adding 35 rushing yards and another score, in a 26-6 beatdown of the playoff-bound Cowboys. The Cowboys did not rest players in the game save some injury scratches. For the Commanders, they had seen enough: Howell would be the 2023 starter. His tape showed what you love and what you don’t love about Howell: most of his throws were on time and relatively accurate, including some pinpoint accurate deep passing. He hit Jahan Dotson in stride for a number of plays that had to worry Cowboys fans about playing a team like the 49ers (and indeed, Purdy would carve up the Cowboys in the divisional playoff game just two weeks later) while adding a beautiful throw over the top to McLaurin. His TD run came on an improvised cut-up on a speed option play in which LBs bounced off the surprisingly-sturdy runner. But his INT was a silly throw into triple coverage, completely airmailed into the back of the endzone, and he did immediately look to run when his first read was covered, both of which are hallmarks of the not-ready-young-QB program. Now, in week 13, the Dolphins will face Howell as he sits atop the passing yardage rankings in the league. I’m not joking: Sam Howell is the NFL’s top passer in terms of yardage. Okay, sure, he hasn’t played his bye week while the guys in the top 5 behind him (Tua and C.J. Stroud) have, but still! Howell has 3,339 pass yards this year. He also has 569 dropbacks, with Josh Allen (who also has not had his bye) sitting in 2nd with 483. That means Howell is a Kobe Bryant Volume Shooter of a QB, throwing for just 6.9 yards per attempt (tied with rookies Will Levis and Anthony Richardson, as well as Russell Wilson). This less encouraging reality is why PFF lists Howell as the 34th best QB by their grading this year. When I turned on the tape, I didn’t see the worst QB in the league, but I did see some nightmarish turnovers from a guy who was taking an absolute beating. Howell has been pressures on 188 passes this year, not a good number at all. He’s taken 55 sacks, 15 more than 2nd place rookie Bryce Young. Howell will throw absolute darts, stepping back in the pocket and placing a laser to a contested WR. On those plays, he genuinely reminds me (favorably) of Ryan Fitzpatrick. He has 24 big time throws*, tied for 4th with Trevor Lawrence. But his 21 turnover worthy plays* rank 2nd in the league, behind just Mac Jones and in front of the mediocre Joshua Dobbs, Desmond Ritter, and Gardner Minshew. Not the company a league-leading passer wants to keep. Howell keeps gritting out the games, even as his team disintegrates around him and he takes a beating, but Commanders fans are looking for more than a season you might guess belonged to 2018 Jameis Winston. As a runner, Howell is tougher than he is quick, 11th among QBs not named Taysom Hill with 223 rushing yards on the season. His decision-making on such runs has been solid, as only Bryce Young has a better yards per carry average. Ultimately, think Fitzpatrick: when Howell is dealing, any upset is possible. When the offense gets stuck in the mud, you might end up down 6-0 in the turnover margin, as the Commanders somehow did against the Giants. Recency bias suggests Howell will not cause trouble for the Dolphins defense: Howell had a 5 big time throw to 1 turnover worthy play ratio in Week 9 against New England, but since then has managed just a 2:6 ratio, including 0:5 in the last two weeks against the Giants and Cowboys. If the NFL is an Any Given Sunday league, Sam Howell should be on every single poster and commercial.
Coaching
For Washington fans, the air is crisp and the sun is shining: Dan Snyder was forced by compounding embarrassments and financial exposures to sell his beloved Washington Commanders, known less for success in his tenure than clinging to cheapness, theft, racism, and institutional oppression. The page now turns, and fans prepare for an owner with a track record in other leagues of long-term vision and improved fan experiences. Any ownership move, however, feels like sitting in the guillotine for any coaching staff. Ron Rivera may be happy he doesn’t have to read Snyder’s daily “10 Hottest Ladies In This Building Right Now” email, but his job security is as precarious as it ever was. Rivera is the picturesque Serious Coach, always bringing an air of gravitas to the proceedings, and his uncertain future is all the more sad this year because his coaching staff added plenty of intrigue with Eric Bieniemy this season. Intrigue is also the name of the game with noted “Gotta Hear Both Sides” J6 apologist Jack Del Rio, who seems to eat nothing but tape and questionably sourced segments about Capitol Police. As it still remains most likely that house is cleared, all three will be competing for their next jobs. Jack Del Rio has already started that next step, fired in the wake of Thanksgiving after ownership traded his two starting edge rushers. I imagine Del Rio feels stronger about losing his edge rushers than he did about the Insurrection, which he called a “dust-up” lol. While the team is certainly more serious than years past, many of the themes of the Snyder days remain: poor defense (31st in DVOA), poor turnover differential (-9, worst in football, 8th worst in takeaways and 3rd worst in their own turnovers), and real head-scratching game management decisions, including sending an Eagles game into OT despite scoring the game-tying TD with mere seconds to go and having the best team in the NFL on their heels. With an uninspiring team on both sides of the ball, the firing is less of a question of if and more of a question of how the team might restructure. Early reports link Josh Harris, the Commanders owner, to a Belichick pursuit. We’ll see.
With Bieniemy, there is not much use in recapping the story: the same year Bieniemy took over for Matt Nagy as OC of the Chiefs, Mahomes exploded for 5,000 yards and 50 TDs. The next year, they won a Super Bowl. Bieniemy has been there for everything within the elevation of the Chiefs offense, but was never able to get a head coaching job for reasons unclear to the public. For many, it boiled down to institutional racism, a recognition that many of HC Andy Reid’s former offensive coordinators were elevated, but Bieniemy was not. That is undeniably true but, unfortunately, so is the reality that the offensive contributions of Bieniemy to Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid (who has always called the plays) is nebulous. In the Dominique Foxworth profile about Bieniemy in 2021, you get the picture of a person filled to the brim with cliches, and Foxworth concludes that the cliches hit for some players, namely Mahomes. The Chiefs run every scheme under the sun with RPOs and all sorts of brilliant scheming. The secret sauce is the essentially-fairy tale WR routes that the Chiefs are able to use because Patrick Mahomes can see all and throw a ball to every blade of grass on the football field. Bieniemy comes from a place where the offense does it all, and that presents problems for a team that cannot do much. As such, we turn to the mission that Eric Bieniemy has now before him: he was asked to make something of an offense that was bottom 10 in all scoring categories in 2022. He was handed Sam Howell, a second-year pro with a once-stellar pedigree who has some real movement skills. There was some juice there this offseason and, when pundits talked about the football team outside of the ownership, they suggested scheming up an RPO game that relies on a moving Howell. Perhaps an emphasis on power runs early to take advantage of young RB Brian Robinson and masks some of the OL deficiencies. Perhaps a hurry-up tempo-based offense that attempts to give his QB either-or looks. Unfortunately, the offense has attempted to do all three of those, looking at times sensational and at other times absolutely stuck in the mud. Even factoring out the turnovers, Bieniemy’s offense has far too many 4-second-long 2 yard passing attempts. It’s ugly to watch, sets up the QB to take a beating, and leaves the Commanders scrambling late in games to find magic. What worries me most about Bieniemy is not that he will not be Andy Reid: no one, not even the young gun Shanahan Tree, has had that unique level of creativity for that long a time. No, my concern is how much of the Commanders staff was retained. Bieniemy brings his own QB and WRs coach (with little evidence that he knows much about them) and his OL coach is last year’s Assistant OL coach promoted for one of the worst units in the league. We saw how that worked in Miami with Josh Boyer’s defense never a fit for McDaniel’s offense. Concerning, and a clear question to be addressed if Rivera is fired before the end of the year and Bieniemy is promoted. Meanwhile, Jack Del Rio’s defense rallied in so many ways to save his job last year after his questionable politics led him to delete accounts from a few social media sites. Perhaps with his newfound attention (most likely just better injury luck), the Commanders put forth PFF’s 13th best defense (with 8th best coverage grade*) and the 7th best weighted DVOA. The unit played like a top 10 defense, and is committed to the new-age NFL plan of building back to front: Del Rio got two more highly-touted DBs to play with this season to build with surprisingly good safeties from 2022, and traded away Montez Sweat and Chase Young, the duo dubbed by the Around The NFL podcast as “Young and Sweaty.” Del Rio is yet another jack of all trades when the Commanders would love a little expertise: his 4-3 scheme lends itself to many different zone coverages, he blitzes when his top rushers are out but not so much when they’re in, and he just keeps rolling along. It’s interesting to see a man so vanilla pilot a unit that was ultimately pretty good. Fans will keep calling for his head as, buried in the nice stats, the Commanders allowed some real explosive pass plays over the course of the 2022. They got his head and then some after a 45-10 Thanksgiving drubbing. Rivera will now call the defensive plays against the high-flying Dolphins at home. Maybe that firing could have waited one more week for Ron’s sake!
Offense
It’s hard to look through Washington’s supporting cast and see better than average players. Fortunately, it is also hard to look through the starting lineup and see worse than average! The Commanders are full of intriguing pieces with high floors, perhaps explaining why Bieniemy took the job: this is basically like being handed 10 League-Average Avatars and getting all the credit (or, to a lesser degree, blame) for whatever happens that isn’t average. High-risk, high-reward. Scary Terry McLaurin is the standout, in year 5 now of a true #1 receiver career. In 2022, he set his highest yards per catch* average since the rookie breakout, with a better YAC* average than that year. McLaurin is getting better at finding space, still a beast in contested catches (17/26 last year), and has that Mike Evans profile of a dude who probably will never stop getting 1000 yard seasons regardless of the QB. The only issue: McLaurin has struggled to score. This is probably a QB problem, but you would expect a 6’0” 4.35 speed guy like McLaurin to average more than 5 TDs a season. This year, he has just 2 TDs and a career-low yards per reception of 11.6, in large part due to the worst YAC average of his career (just 3.5). Going 9/17 on contested passes*, he seems far more likely to look like the 2021 McLaurin who had to catch 47 contested targets than the 26 of last year. He dropped to the third round back in 2019 because of concerns about his ability to navigate traffic and drops, neither of which have affected him at all in the pros (no more than 3 drops the last 3 years, as an emphatic statement on the matter). McLaurin also played less in the slot than ever last year (and even less this year), entirely thanks to the addition of Jahan Dotson and Curtis Samuel. In 2022, Samuel was finally healthy after a lost 2021 campaign, pulling down 64 catches for 655 and 4 TDs, a perfectly productive season even plagued with QB weirdness. This is a much better role for the speedy guy than as a Wind-Sprint Deep Threat, as the Panthers played him in Rivera’s old days with the team. QBs averaged just over a 100 QB rating targeting him, exactly what you want from a slot (though they only had an 88 rating when Samuel was actually in the slot, an issue that might have to do with Heinicke’s small stature). This year, he seems on pace for almost exactly the same year, with a slight uptick in yards per route run (from 1.28 to 1.53), similar YAC average (4.6 in 2022 and 4.3 this year), and exactly the same ADOT (6.9). He’s on pace for 66 catches after catching 64 last year. Consistency! The real eye-opener at WR in 2022, though, was the emergence of 1st-round pick Jahan Dotson. Picked at 16th overall, about 30 picks too high to Draft Twitter, Dotson’s emergence was the rare Hold-My-Beer backflip attempt that worked. Dotson posted a quality 14.9 yards per catch average, 7 TDs, and an eye-opening 11/18 contested catch rate. He was mostly average after the catch, slipping just a few tackles and keeping a 4.1 average YAC number (on par with Tyler Boyd or Kendrick Bourne, for instance). This year, the YAC is way down and, despite already catching more passes than the rookie campaign, Dotson has gone totally invisible in games this year, including two catchless outings against Atlanta and Seattle of all teams. Not good. He topped 100 once against Philadelphia in the OT loss. Logan Thomas is back as the Commanders TE (once a third-string QB for the Dolphins under Philbin!). He weirdly broke out for a 72 catch season in 2020, but injuries have relegated him to a bit of an after-thought. He only had .88 yards per route run* last year, a genuinely terrible number. Given that he also cannot run block, Thomas seemed a clear candidate for replacement this year, but TE will likely be a project for next year. He’s having a more-of-the-same kind of year, with a slight improvement to 1.08 yards per route run and 45 catches for 424 yards. He’s no weapon now, but a useful piece. John Bates returns as a blocking TE to supplement Thomas, and he is basically a sixth OL when he’s on the field. RB wraps up the discussion of skill positions, with both Antonio Gibson and Brian Robinson Jr. splitting snaps. Gibson’s yards per carry has diminished each year, and he had the fewest explosive runs of his three year career last year. Gibson did, however, finally meet his potential as a receiving back after playing WR in college. He caught 46 passes for 353 yards and (most importantly) 18 first downs, which tied for 7th. Sure, that’s not Christian McCaffrey (40) or Austin Ekeler (37), but that puts him tied with Aaron Jones and Travis Etienne, both known as skilled receivers. Gibson may yet have a place on the team after finding himself in the doghouse for struggling to find blocks and fumbling frequently in 2022. He fumbled 3 times in his first 4 games, but hasn’t since then, and his 33 catches for 285 yards with 2 TDs is certainly valuable to the team. Finally, Brian Robinson Jr. was somewhat of a PR sensation after being shot in the offseason in an attempted robbery and still playing. Part of that attention was the morbid fascination with the awful Sean Taylor burglary story (Robinson was injured in an attempted armed robbery as well, by two 15-year-olds. Taylor was killed by a 17-year-old attempting to rob his home without knowing he had been left behind due to injury during a road trip). Robinson took what he could behind a banged up offensive line, not quite topping 4 yards per carry, and his numbers were fairly inefficient as a result. Robinson looked the part, however, with his 797 yards in 12 games, projecting to 1,129 over a full season, and hitting holes with bravery in the relatively old-fashioned gap scheme. Robinson has excelled this year in an attack substantially more focused on zone runs, with 610 yards and 5 TDs. He also has seen better usage in the passing game, with 29 catches for 325 yards and 3 TDs, making him an even stronger option by the numbers than Gibson (the eye test suggests he isn’t nearly as elusive). Robinson is incredible to watch in traffic, closing distances quickly in (and through) defenders to surprisingly strong gains. He looks more hesitant when in space, which will keep him from being a Derrick Henry successor unless he finds that next gear.
On the line, Charles Leno Jr. is the clear standout. Playing at least 900 snaps every season since 2015 (1,000 at least in the last five seasons), he’s as dependable as they come. In a division with the Eagles and Cowboys dialing up obscene pass rushes (the Giants have some players themselves), Leno still acquits himself well. He may have allowed 8 sacks in 2022, but that was mostly bad luck: he allowed just 37 pressures*, 1 more than 2021. He was also asked to block in the power scheme on 37.5% of snaps (his two best years in the run game featured just 14.5% and 21.8% power) and generally performed poorly there. He hasn’t gotten better in the run game this year despite the scheme change, which may be due to age. The pass blocking hasn’t missed a beat, and he’s valuable to Sam Howell in a year when Howell has taken a beating. Not helping things there is that perfectly-passable LG Andrew Norwell was out for the year after an OTA elbow injury and, after healing, the Commanders recently released him with an injury settlement. A competition between Saadhiq Charles (run-blocking disaster at RG last year), Keaton Sutherland (possessor of the lowest season-long pass blocking grade I’ve ever seen on PFF, a 2.0 with the Dolphins in 2019), and last year’s 7th round pick Chris Paul (not the small basketball player, he is 325 pounds, so it’s more like if another NFL player ate basketball’s Chris Paul). Paul lost the job to Charles, but took back the reins after Charles suffered a calf injury. Paul has been the worse of the two, with 4 pressures a game to Charles’s 3. Center was a revolving door for the Commanders last year, and the newest guy to try it is former Giant Nick Gates, whose last year as a full-time center was in 2020. He had one of the more gruesome leg injuries in week 2 of 2021, when his leg was turned the wrong way and keeping it at all was touch and go. Like all of these disgusting NFL stories, his return was seen as a beautiful encapsulation of toughness in the back half of 2022. Football-wise, Gates held up well in pass protection and did not noticeably falter as a run blocker. His pass blocking took a step back and the Commanders benched him for former Dolphins undrafted player Tyler Larsen. Larsen has been evidently bad, allowing more pressures this year in 160 less snaps: it’s unclear why he might offer more than Gates, and enters this week questionable. At RG, one of the more interesting tackle-to-guard conversions in the league will get a full season of experimentation. Sam Cosmi was a bit of a pressure sieve out at right tackle after coming out as a 2nd-round pick in 2021. Cosmi had one of the all-time greatest NFL combines for an OL prospect, testing at a 9.99 out of 10 in Relative Athletic Scores (putting him in the top athleticism percentiles by an algorithm that measures all of the drill results), and was selected with the knowledge that he would need serious technique work after developing bad habits at Texas. Cosmi was compared in the draft to Dolphins Center Connor Williams, as both are similarly wildly-talented athletes who might simply be better in a phone booth, where they can use size, strength, pre-snap planning, and speed without having to develop the precise technique of a tackle. Cosmi is the clear best player on the Commanders line by 2023 performance, offering a plus in the run game as opposed to Leno Jr. while holding up with good efficiency in the pass game (his 27 pressures are high, but his PFF score is passable). That leaves RT, where Bieniemy gets his lone starter import from Kansas City, Andrew Wylie. Wylie is dependable (nearly 1,300 snaps last year), rarely blows up the run game with blown blocks, and was his best during the postseason, giving up just 5 pressures in 3 games (a 97.9 efficiency number). Projected over a full season, that postseason number would look like Andrew Thomas or Terron Armstead’s. He has been perfectly fine this year, grading average in both the run and pass on PFF. The Commanders offensive line has certainly invited pressure, as I discussed above, and PFF blames LG and C: Howell has the 2nd highest pressure percentage charged to the center (behind the Falcons) and the 7th highest percentage by LG. Meanwhile, Howell has a top 10 lowest rate of pressure percentage from the rest of the line spots. Like an old-school Dolphins line, the Commanders have 3 fine players and 2 nightmares, and as a result, have a bad line. Wylie, for his part, is a perfect encapsulation of the entire offense on paper; a man (and team) with the floor of “huh, not bad I guess” to “what a pleasant surprise!” The result of a team made up of the platonic ideal of “average” is that any disappointments quickly compound. If you have to have a turnstile line, you’d sure love to have Tua and Tyreek to effectively hide that issue.
Defense
As Washington turned the page to new ownership and Ron Rivera began the uphill fight to save his job, his saving grace was this defense, still under meticulous reconstruction in the secondary. Everything to like about the Commanders started there, as they allowed the 7th fewest points in 2022 despite an offense that did little to bail them out. And any analysis of the Commanders starts on the defensive line, now dramatically different than the beginning of the year. Two pieces are still there: Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne. Last year, Jonathan Allen signed a contract that paid him like a top 10 interior defender, and he delivered top 10 interior play: in his third straight highly productive season, he set a career high in run stops* (43) the year after he set a career high in pressures* (67). His missed tackle rate* is non-existent, as 2022 was the first year he missed more than 4 (!) tackles, which is nuts when you consider this dude is firing out of a stance and running backs who are shifty and powerful are coming at him with five yards head start while a big strong dude is shoving him. One reason his pressure rate came down is that his fellow tackle, Daron Payne, set his own career high with 49 pressures on 907 snaps, including 11.5 sacks. That sack number might inflate the notion of who Payne is, which is a fairly explosive volume pass rusher who may not give you the same benefits in run defense (missed 12 tackles last year) and looks more dependable than star-worthy. The Commanders, then, showed their desperation by paying him a new deal that averages $22.5 million a year, which is a luxury I’d imagine they’re taking because of the QB situation (and the to be discussed trades). This year, Payne and Allen have been left on an island as pass rushers, with only 2 sacks for Payne and 5.5 for Allen. They both rank in the top 6 in stops (Payne with 32 and Allen with 27). It strikes you as unwise, then, that they traded two talented edge rushers instead of paying them. One edge rusher, Montez Sweat, had arrived as a pass rusher in the NFL. He set a career-high with 62 pressures on a reasonable 731 snaps, converting 8 into sacks (with many more pressures than Payne but less sacks, you can see why the stat is lowkey useless). Sweat was traded to the Chicago Bears for a 2nd round pick and, even on another doomed team, has contributed 18 pressures, including 7 against the Panthers and Vikings respectively. He’s been remarkably consistent over the past 4 years, and may just top 10 sacks again. On the other side, Chase Young had never replicated the game-wrecking potential he demonstrated as Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2020: the oft-injured player delivered few pressures compared to his pedigree (just 42 in his 2020 campaign, and injuries limited the rest of the years) and did not have his 5th-year option picked up. Young was traded to the 49ers, a wildly athletic piece of an incredibly deep and talented front 7. He has yet to show up in a big way, with just 10 pressures, but against the Bears in Week 5, he had 11 alone. The potential will be there for Young, which will always make him valuable. The new edge rushers are headlines by James Smith-Williams and Casey Toohill, both of whom would be cut from most teams in preseason. Smith-Williams is out this week, making the other edge Andre Jones Jr., I believe, who also seems to have 80 career defensive snaps. The Dolphins offensive tackles are getting a paycheck for nothing this week. In the rest of the front 7, the Commanders churn their linebacker corps with an interest in shutting down the run games, which are strong across their division. Cole Holcomb leaves to join the Steelers, taking with him a supremely average set of numbers and a well-rounded skillset. The Commanders replace him with Cody Barton, who was likely signed based on a run of three games (San Fran, Kansas City, and the Jets) which featured excellent run defense against some of the best run games in the league. His experience as the lead LB on the vaunted Seattle defense (Pete Carroll guys always tend to be employed throughout the league) must have sold the Commanders, despite plenty of lean times in Barton’s career. He is on a prove-it deal, and has been a decent tackler and blitzer, missing very few tackles. Next to him, 2021 first-round pick Jamin Davis showed more signs of life after a disappointing first year. His 47 stops in the ground game, and missed tackle rate cut to 7.3%, has the Commanders believing that he is ready to anchor this team. He has justified that expectation, with some absolutely explosive tackles on RBs. But both LBs have shown precious little in coverage, and the Commanders must be ready to be attacked underneath by any team that plays them. Both LBs have allowed at least a 117 QB rating, which is awful.
It helps, then, that safety Kamren Curl is an incredible player in the box who took the next step in coverage last year. Nothing I can write about Curl can be more indicative of his excellence than PFF, who wrote, “Curl’s 6% missed tackle rate over the past two seasons is the fourth-lowest mark among 99 safeties with at least 50 total tackles over the span. In 2022, Curl’s 80.8 PFF grade ranked seventh among safeties, and he allowed an open target rate of just 47.2%, which ranked eighth among safeties with at least 25 targets into their coverage area. Two total safeties earned run-defense and coverage grades of at least 80.0 in 2022: Minkah Fitzpatrick and Kamren Curl.” When you’re a top 10 player in both phases of the game, you’re typically quite good. Curl is one of this decade’s best draft finds. He is due for an extension this year, and will be a highly coveted free agent if he hits the market. He has yet to pick off a pass this year and allowed more catches than 2022, but going from great in all phases to good in all phases is not much of a concern. Next to him, Darrick Forest flashed plenty in the free safety position, missing just 7% of tackles himself and picking off 4 passes toward an NFL passer rating* of just 68 (he’s been less impressive this year, but the team bolstered the position with 2nd round athletic marvel Jartavius Martin, who is playing more at this point). Two good, young, ascending safeties would help the corners a great deal, and they’ll need to. The Commanders are rebuilding that room, and they are doing it with two highly-selected rookies. First-rounder Emmanuel Forbes is a unicorn: weighing in at 166, he is the definition of pesky. In his career at Mississippi State, Forbes picked off 14 passes and broke up 17, then came to the combine and ran a 4.35. With that kind of production and blazing speed, the weight is the only factor that pushed him down boards. 2023 will be a fascinating case study as to how a CB can mitigate such drastic size differences, and we will see how often teams can target him in the run game, where he could be pushed around. Unfortunately, Forbes has been a disaster. He’s allowed 27 catches for (get this) 490 yards!! An unreal 18.1 yards per catch allowed. He’s also fought his way to 9 deflections, somehow: he’s a high risk, high reward player currently mostly offering risk, and he will miss this game. Benjamin St. Juste, a 3rd-round prospect for the Commanders in 2021, will play outside and the numbers do not like him much better. He may have a smaller yardage per catch number (13.2) and more pass breakups (11), but he has allowed 4 TDs to 1 INT on the most catches in the league for a WILD 741 total yards and a passer rating of 107.8. This doesn’t even count the 8 penalties, good for 7th in the league. The aforementioned Martin will play in the slot, most likely, as he did effectively in college. PFF rated him the 94th best prospect, but the Commanders liked him enough to select him in the middle of the 2nd round. There is plenty to love: Martin does not crack 200 pounds, and yet he was a force in the run game from the slot, taking 493 snaps there as opposed to 177 in a more traditional safety role. He could also be a Curl replacement if Curl moves out of town next year: until then, expect to see the safety taking on a role as a physical slot. Last is certainly not least here as CB Kendall Fuller will return as the #1 corner. After an elite 2017, Fuller never really touched those heights, but has always delivered decent production in defenses that have gone up and down in terms of talent and efficiency. He misses very few tackles, leading to a small percentage of his yards allowed being YAC. He has 8 INTs from 2020 to 2022 to go along with 30 pass breakups, which demonstrates strong production. Fuller is technically sound and, at 198 with his good tackling ability, he will likely be asked to handle the bigger receivers. Fuller will not be returning to the realm of starting, but he is serviceable. A team full of serviceable players was supposed to be a top 10 unit, greater than the sum of its parts. Instead, the turnover-prone offense has doomed a Commanders defensive unit that has players disappearing faster than a Back To The Future paradox photo. A few good pieces have been entirely unable to compensate for the chaos and, thus, Jack Del Rio is fired and Ron Rivera is calling plays.
Special Teams
Washington struggled to put points on the board all of last year, and that was certainly not helped along by a poor effort from the kicking game. Joey Slye was 24/28 on extra points (one of 4 kickers who made below 90%) and 25/30 on FGs, missing them at all levels of the field. 4 of 6 from beyond 50 isn’t terrible, but add in 8/10 from 40-49 and a miss from inside 40, and you have a bad season. Slye probably deserved competition, but did not get it, and he has sprayed random misses at random times again this year. Punter Tress Way was much better, pinning 41 kicks inside the 20. A lot of that has to do with an excellent kick coverage team: Way had the 4th fewest yards per return and 8th best net punting average despite only averaging the 18th most yards per kick. Helps to have strong gunners! He’s had similar production this year. Dax Milne was a consistently good punt returner last year (even if he was more famous as ex-BFF Zach Wilson’s ex’s new man), with a smaller average per return but a good decision-maker with a league leading 40 returns. He and Antonio Gibson handled kick returns for modest averages per return. Gibson has handled the kick returns alone this year for an average of 24.3, and he looks good. Jamison Crowder is dependable on the punt returns, with a 7.7 average, breaking one 61 yarder. Like Milne, he makes smart decisions and is shifty enough to pick up a few extra yards. Jeremy Reaves was the best player on special teams last year, tallying 16 tackles (2nd in the league), and leads the team in tackles with 5 this year, but was sent to IR, and now I don’t know the name of any Commanders special teamer. Not a good team! Overall, the Commanders finished 7th in the league in terms of special teams DVOA in 2022, in large part thanks to the best punt game in the NFL, but have had less success this year.
Game Prediction
Unfortunately for the Washington Commanders, home field only brings so much advantage. The Commanders are 1-4 at home, losing to the Eagles, Giants, Bears, and Bills. You may recognize the Bears and Giants as decidedly bad football teams: they are. Howell has thrown 8 TDs to 10 INTs at home, and much of the Commanders’ ire toward the state of their team has to be the team’s inability to put on a show at their strangely-suburban home stadium. Enter the Dolphins, who are mercifully nearing the end of their road-heavy stretch and looking for a third straight win to propel them into the home stretch of the season. The characteristics of teams that beat the Dolphins are, to this point, fairly clear: the Bills, Eagles, and Chiefs all featured teams with stout play in the middle of their defense, elite and mobile QBs, the ability to both score quick and control the ball when needed, an offense that avoids turnovers (all three are not perfect here, to be sure, but they played clean offensive games for long stretches of their wins), and (perhaps most importantly) a defense that can force turnovers and provide conflicts for an offense. The Dolphins now face a team with poor coverage numbers from the LBs and Ss, a pocket passer, a sputtering offense that looks stuck in mud, the most turnover-prone team in football, and a defense that struggles to find the big play in key moments in a game. It’s a recipe for disaster, one that finds Washington nearly 10-point underdogs in their own stadium. They’ll be taking on the Dolphins with their head coach now responsible for calling plays, and Tua’s threats will come from practice squad edge rushers. This, more than any other game, is closer to preseason than playoffs.
With that context, let’s tease out how Washington might win in an effort to leak-proof Miami as they move into the teeth of their schedule. Undoubtedly, the biggest issue in Miami is their offensive sputtering of late, characterized by difficult turnovers (the Chiefs, Raiders, and Jets game all featured some version, with the Dolphins surrendering 6 turnovers over the 3 games, 2 for TDs) and poor execution in short yardage situations. Here, we see a glimmer of hope for Washington: the NFL’s best offense can be stuck in reverse with interior defenders as good as Payne and Allen. The quick twitch corners may miss some routes, but a surprising defensive gameplan and some freelancing could lead Tua into the kind of second-guessing we see on his turnovers. And what if Sam Howell gets hot? Sure, we haven’t seen Miami surrender much since the first half of the Germany game, but Andrew Van Ginkel will be the new full-time edge rusher in Jaelan Phillips’s absence. Will he be totally up to snuff? Or will Sam Howell gunsling his way to an early lead that the team can protect with a physical runner? Can the Dolphins win without forcing a turnover?
That thought exercise is silly because expecting the team that fields Benjamin St. Juste, Jamin Davis, Sam Howell, and Brian Robinson at the key spots needed to disrupt Miami this way is fantasy thinking. But what if the team they were playing featured Darius Slay, Nakobe Dean, Jalen Hurts, and DeAndre Swift? Worse yet, what if it were Charvarius Ward, Fred Warner, Brock Purdy, and Christian McCaffrey? Those are the top teams in the NFC (Eagles and 49ers), not even including guys like Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown, Nick Bosa, George Kittle, Jalen Carter, etc. What about Kyle Hamilton, Roquan Smith, Lamar Jackson, and Keaton Mitchell of the Ravens? We already saw Trent McDuffie, Willie Gay, Patrick Mahomes, and Isiah Pacheco take Miami in the first half so badly that a near-perfect second half couldn’t bring them back. So every game now becomes an indictment on how Miami fixes their greatest issues: turnovers (both getting and giving) and short-yardage situations. Until Miami does this (I don’t need them to beat good teams, this isn’t the NCAA), then it’s hard to view them as anything but a sports car: fast and powerful in bursts, with a delicate engine that will blow and require too much maintenance to win the race. We’re getting hypothetical here, both because it is the end of the year and because there is no way in the Year Of Our Lord 2023 that the Washington Commanders will beat a relatively healthy Miami team that will once again field Robert Hunt, Terron Armstead, and Da’Von Achane. Let’s see it.
Score Prediction: 31-13 Miami
Season Record (Taylor’s Picks): 9-2
* = See Glossary
