Commanders Season Thus Far
This has been a year of change for the Washington Commanders. New GM, a new head coach, and a franchise quarterback. What more could you ask for when it comes to the Commanders? Washington fans have been waiting for YEARS for a team like this. It hasn’t been since the days of Robert Griffin III’s rookie season that the Commanders have had this much hope. Entering Week 12, the Burgundy and Gold are 7-4 and have six games left. They will make the playoffs in 2024, something that was unthinkable as recently as Week 1. So why is everything going so well for this Washington team that only had four wins all season last year?
Adam Peters
The priority for Josh Harris and the company this offseason was to find the perfect GM to turn the team around. They got him: Adam Peters came over from the 49ers with an impressive resume. The Assistant General Manager for San Francisco was the top GM candidate this past offseason. After graduating from UCLA, Peters spent six seasons as a scout for the Patriots, being a part of three of New England’s early Super Bowl wins. He then spent five seasons as one for the Broncos. In 2014, he was named Denver’s Assistant Director of College Scouting, getting promoted to Director in 2016. His talents then took him to the Bay Area, where he became San Francisco’s Vice President of Player Personnel—four years of solid work in that position got him promoted to Assistant General Manager of the Niners. His hard work and climbing up the ladder have given him the top job of a Commanders team that needed a fix badly. Now, it was time to find a head coach.
Dan Quinn
At the beginning of the offseason, the top target was Lions’ offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. Johnson left a sour taste in the mouths of Commanders fans in late February after he announced he would stay with Detroit for 2024. He made that announcement while Peters and Co. flew to the Motor City to interview him. The next candidate was Mike Macdonald, the defensive coordinator for the Ravens. Unfortunately for Washington, the Seahawks swooped in and snagged him up. So Dan Quinn was the next candidate. Not only did the Commanders take the Cowboys defensive coordinator, but they made one heck of a choice that was not initially well received by Washington fans when the hire was first announced. Quinn has a long track record of creating a positive locker room culture, which was seen during his tenure as the Falcons’ head coach. He led the Falcons to a Super Bowl, and despite choking a 28-3 lead, most of that blown lead is not considered his fault and more that of Kyle Shanahan.
Jayden Daniels
Step three in the process was for Adam Peters to draft a franchise quarterback. The Commanders had the second overall pick, and with it, they took Jayden Daniels of LSU. They didn’t know how ready Daniels was for the NFL. It took a couple of weeks before Daniels had his breakout game in Week Three against the Bengals on Monday Night. The kid had a 91.3 completion percentage (an NFL rookie record) for 293 yards in Washington’s 38-33 win over Cincinnati. Since then, it has been all uphill for the rookie quarterback. He broke records for the highest completion percentage in a four-game span (82.1) and had more scoring drives (23) than incompletions (19) through the first four weeks of the season. A little stumble came when JD5, as he’s affectionately known, injured his rib in Week Seven against the Panthers. Since then, he’s fallen off a bit but has still played very well. That was proven in the game against the Bears. You know exactly why.
After the Commanders blew a 12-0 lead, Chicago was up 15-12 with less than a minute. With two seconds left, Jayden had to throw a Hail Mary. After escaping from multiple tacklers, he heaved the ball to the end zone, where it deflected off Bears’ cornerback Tyrique Stevenson and into the hands of Noah Brown. The play is now known as the “Madhouse in Maryland” (I prefer “Noah’s Arc”, but this works, too). He’s only going to get better, and maybe the mini-bye before the Cowboys game this coming Sunday will help out.
Kliff Kingsbury
Dan Quinn needed to find an offensive mind to help lead the rookie QB to greatness. Kliff Kingsbury had taken a year off of coaching after getting fired as the Cardinals head coach in 2022. The Raiders highly sought after him, but Las Vegas settled on Luke Getsy. Chicago also looked into a Kingsbury hire, but they hired Shane Waldron from Seattle instead. So, to Washington Kingsbury came, and a match was made in heaven. The first week, fans were not so thrilled with him because he was playing it way too safely with Daniels in his debut game. But by Week Two, Kingsbury started to get the credit he got as an offensive mastermind. He routinely has been calling plays that allow Daniels to get through holes, get lots of time in the pocket and throw deep balls accurately. The main hope here is that he doesn’t fizzle out like he did as head coach in his first season in Arizona.
Defense
Last season, Washington had the worst defense, and it needed a DIRE retooling. Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio did a ton of damage that was considered unfixable. But hiring Quinn, in theory, would help the defense improve. Quinn brought Joe Whitt Jr. from Dallas with him to be his defensive coordinator, and there has been massive improvement week by week. Let’s start with some of the acquisitions: Frankie Luvu has been possibly the best defensive pickup Washington has made since London Fletcher. The man already has seven sacks, which ties the single-season high he set in Carolina in 2022. Then there’s Dante Fowler, whose 8.5 sacks puts him in fourth in the entire league in that category. Draft-wise, Washington got Jer’Zhan Newton from Illinois to help bolster the defensive line and fill the hole that Montez Sweat left when the Commanders traded him to Chicago. Mike Sainristil is also proving a massive commodity at cornerback, with one such example being keeping A.J. Brown out of the Thursday Night game against the Eagles last week. Here’s to hoping Marshon Lattimore can become a great addition because cornerback has been a massive issue for this team this season. Benjamin St-Juste and Emmanuel Forbes are just not cutting it.
Terry McLaurin
I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it: Terry McLaurin is one of the most underrated wide receivers in the NFL. The man doesn’t get the credit he deserves because of the team he’s been on his entire career. Scary Terry is finally becoming Merry Terry. He’s still putting up crazy stats at 29, averaging 15 yards per reception, has six touchdowns and already has 721 receiving yards. Now that he has an actual quarterback, there’s no telling how much better he will be as a player.
Running Backs
Running back for the last couple of seasons has honestly been a strength. Brian Robinson Jr. can be thanked for that. The man is a truck and cannot be stopped. But by adding Austin Ekeler to replace Antonio Gibson, you’ve added a second unstoppable force that’s tough to take down. The run game has been crucial this year. Washington averages the sixth-most rushing yards per game and is third in total rushing yards entering Week 12. They are also tied with the Eagles with 19 rushing touchdowns to lead the Shield. Last year, Washington was near the BOTTOM with only 14 rushing touchdowns in 2023. They also ranked in the bottom in all rushing stats under Eric Bieniemy.
With Week 12 in the NFL approaching, it’s time to take this team seriously. This is a playoff team. Yes, there are many holes, but those can be fixed in the draft because we can finally believe it again.