Things I think after the Commanders 2-1 start to the season

Bill-in-Bangkok’s rambling thoughts following Washington’s commanding win on Monday Night Football

I know my place and I usually stay in my lane. I am not a football analyst; I can’t break down film or decipher X’s and O’s. I have no special insights. I’m just a fan with a keyboard with the time and inclination to make sure that there’s content to read and discuss every day. My biggest skills are the ability to copy & paste, the discipline and sobriety needed to stick to a regular schedule, and a more-than-passing acquaintance with English grammar and punctuation.

I have my opinions, but, for the most part, I try to air them in the comments section like everyone else. It seems like a bit of abuse of privilege to fill up an article with thoughts from my head, which are nothing more substantial than the opinions of any other Washington fan.

Normally, when I do write an article about a football topic, as I did last week ahead of the Bengals game, I make a sincere effort to write an article that is evidence-based, and which will inform the reader, even if the ideas I share in the article are not useful. Last week, for example, although the title of the article focused on Brian Robinson, its true purpose was to discuss the Bengals’ defensive struggles in stopping the run, and to highlight the absence due to injury of their two starting defensive tackles. That is good information regardless of the value of my associated thoughts.

Once of twice a season, however, I give into the urge to write an opinion article — an editorial, if you will. When I do, I casually toss out the window the idea that I need to include valuable information or evidence and I simply indulge myself in sharing my burgundy-tinted opinions, giving this type of article all the nutritional value of artificial whipped cream. I usually reserve it for the bye week, but I’ve been so amped up since Monday night that I gave into the urge early this year.

If you’re not interested in reading my ramblings, I don’t blame you — I’ll see you tomorrow for the Daily Slop.

If, against the odds, you still want to read what I’ve written, grab your napkin and spoon and dig into a big bowl of aerated fat & sugar.

Loss of Ekeler reminds me of the 2021 McKissic injury

I’m wrong so often that the few times that I’m right about something tend to stick in my brain for a long time. In 2021, Washington was on a 3-game winning streak when JD McKissic was injured in Week 11. At the time, I said that I felt he was the ‘secret sauce’ to whatever offensive success the team had been enjoying, and that the Scott Turner/Taylor Heinicke offense was likely to struggle without him.

Indeed, the team went on to lose 4 of the next 5 games and I believe to this day that it was the loss of McKissic that was the first domino in the cascade of failure. At the time of the injury, no one realized that it would be season-ending.

Obviously, Jayden Daniels brings a lot more to the table than Heinicke did, but Austin Ekeler has been arguably the ‘secret sauce’ that makes the recipe work. In three games this season, he’s rushed 13 times at 6.4 yards per carry, with 3 first downs and a touchdown. He’s caught 9 passes at 13.4 yards per reception for 6 more first downs. He leads all running backs in average yards after catch at an incredible 15.2 (2nd place is Alvin Kamara at 12.8).

When you add in his 4 kickoff returns for 145 yards (with a long of 62), it’s easy to see that his influence is felt beyond the offense. If not for an insubstantial penalty flag, his return stats would also include a length-of-the-field return for a touchdown to open the game against the Giants.

Losing Ekeler to concussion protocol for at least a week strikes me as being at least as significant to the 2024 Commanders as the loss of JD McKissic was to the 2021 Washington Football Team.

Concussions are unpredictable. We might see Austin Ekeler back on the field against Cleveland when the Commanders return to Northwest Stadium on October 7th, or we could see the kind of long-lasting uncertainty that other players have suffered through with concussions previously.

It will be very hard to replicate Ekeler’s contributions to the team. Offensive Coordinator Kliff Kingsbury seems to agree with that assessment. Asked on Thursday about Ekeler’s absence, Kliff said, “You don’t replace a guy like that; you just have to find other ways to be creative.”

Let’s hope that creativity isn’t required for more than one game, for Ekeler’s sake, and the sake of the team.

Special teams was killing it in weeks 2 & 3

Poor special teams play was a huge part of the reason that Washington opened the season with a loss to Tampa Bay. Conversely, in Weeks 2 & 3, special teams performed very well on field goals (8-8), kickoff coverage and kickoff returns. Note that I didn’t mention punt coverage — that’s because Washington hasn’t had to cover a punt since the 4th quarter of the opening game in Tampa.

I’ve been particularly impressed with the tackling on kickoff coverage, which has been mostly very reliable, leading to advantageous field position. Through the first two weeks of the season, Washington was 2nd in average starting field position. Against the Bengals, Cincinnati’s avg starting field position was the 27.7 yard line. Discounting end-of-half kneeldowns, Washington’s avg starting field position was the 36.7 yard line. That 10-yard difference, driven by both strong returns and effective coverage, has a strong correlation to points scored by each team.

Of course, Ekeler has been part of the special teams success, but if the team can work through his absence on kickoff returns (we average less than 2 returns per game), then this should continue to be a strong element of the team’s success.

Daniels not good enough to keep winning games without pass rush and better CB play

Washington’s pass rush has probably been a little better than most fans think. Joe Whitt, for example, chose to spend most of the game against the Bengals playing 2-high safeties and inviting the Bengals to run the ball or throw the ball underneath the coverage. On two occasions when he changed the coverage scheme, the Commanders were burned for long TD passes.

That said, Washington’s pass rush is not where it needs to be. Anyone who paid attention to my depth chart articles during the offseason will likely remember that I labeled all three DE free agent acquisitions as borderline starters/high end backups. A few people told me that I was wrong, particularly with respect to Dorance Armstrong. So far, what I’ve seen in three games has confirmed my offseason impression; this is a competent group of defensive ends who will generally do little more than hold their own.

While most of the concern among Commanders fans this offseason was with the offensive tackles, my biggest concern was with the cornerback group. So far, this concern seems to have been justified. It’s true that starting CB Emmanuel Forbes missed Week 3 and much of the Week 2 game with a thumb injury, but he didn’t look that great before the injury.

Ben St-Juste has probably played the best of the group, yet he has been beaten several times for touchdowns in the young season.

Jayden Daniels had to play a nearly flawless game to secure the victory on Monday night. The Bengals scored 33 points in a losing effort, and would have scored more if their field goal kicker hadn’t missed.

The Buccaneers had 392 yards of offense, with 289 passing yards and 4 passing touchdowns. The struggling Giants offense had over 300 yards and Daniel Jones threw a pair of touchdowns. The Bengals put up an astonishing 436 total yards, with Joe Burrow throwing for 324 yds and 3 touchdowns.

The Commanders’ defense has also given up 70 first downs in three games, which is tied for 31st in the NFL. Only the Colts have given up more, at 71.

Washington has won two games in a row, but that has been made possible because the offense has improbably scored on ever possession and hasn’t turned the ball over a single time this season. Complementary football means that the team can’t rely on strong special teams play and nearly flawless offensive football to win consistently.

The defense needs to figure things out quickly; there are only so many rabbits inside of the Jayden Daniels hat.

Turnovers are important

The Commanders offense has not lost a turnover through the first three weeks of the season — Washington is the only team that can make that claim this season.

That’s good.

The Commanders defense has generated just one turnover in three games — a fumble recovery vs. the Giants.

That’s not so good.

It’s good to have a ‘plus’ turnover margin, but turnover-free offensive football is likely unsustainable. Zach Ertz fumbled the ball in the middle of the field on Monday night, and was very fortunate that Nick Allegretti was the guy to pounce on it.

Dan Quinn and Joe Whitt promised us a defense that would force turnovers, saying that it was an integral part of the defensive play style and identity.

The defense needs to lift its game and start generating the promised takeaways before the ball starts bouncing the wrong way for the offense.

Whitt sounds like a guy without answers right now. In fact, he sounds too much like RR & EB for my tastes

Joe Whitt talked to reporters on Thursday and, at the beginning of the press conference, made an astounding statement. He said that the defensive unit is “closer than people think”, citing ‘playmaking’ as the key ingredient that’s been missing.

I damned well HOPE they are closer than I think, because I think they look like the worst defense in the league. In fact, they rank 29th in total yards given up, 31st in passing yards surrendered, and 30th in points per game scored by opposing offenses.

Joe Whitt talked on Thursday about the secondary challenges of Emmanuel Forbes’ thumb surgery and the lack of playmaking during games. That sounded too much like the vague mutterings from Ron Rivera, Jack Del Rio and Eric Bieniemy for me.

I really hope he’s more on top of the issues than I think he is.

Daniels’ mobility makes OL better BUT there is some really good blocking happening on plays

I think the tendency is for fans to compare the current offensive line to what we saw last season. When we do that, the ‘24 iteration looks a lot better.

I think that might be a bit misleading. A lot of the comparison should integrate the difference in quarterbacks. Jayden Daniels has better pocket awareness and superior mobility compared to last year’s starting quarterback, Sam Howell; this prevents a lot of bad results.

The difference in approach from offensive coordinators helps too.

Through three games last year, Eric Bieniemy’s offense had run the ball on 42% of plays. This season, Kliff Kingsbury’s offense has run the ball on 56% of plays. Some of that is attributable to Daniels’ ability and propensity to scramble, but he has bailed out of pass protection in favor of running himself a bit less each week.

Kingsbury also seems to be more inclined to use two-tight-end formations and to have those tight ends help with the blocking. We’re seeing some 6- or 7-man blocking fronts used. The running backs all seem to be pretty proficient in pass pro as well. The #3 guy on the depth chart, Jeremy McNichols, was called on to play late in the 4th quarter on Monday night, and made the highlight reel with a devastating block on a blitzing linebacker that gave Jayden Daniels the time he needed to complete a key pass across the middle of the field to extend a scoring drive.

I’m not trying to say that there haven’t been personnel upgrades. In particular, the move from Nick Gates to Tyler Biadasz is an extremely welcome one. And I’ve certainly seen the individual offensive linemen making good plays. I think everyone has probably seen at least one clip of rookie LT Brandon Coleman blocking well against Cincinnati’s premier edge rusher, Trey Hendrickson.

Watching an all-22 film breakdown of Jayden Daniels yesterday, I saw a Bengals linebacker coming on a delayed rush, and thought to myself, ‘he’s gonna crush Daniels’. Instead, just as the linebacker reached the gap in the protection, Sam Cosmi, as he has done so often, stepped into the breach, put his right shoulder into the defender, and Daniels was able to release his pass untouched.

Also, when it comes to run blocking, this group seems to actually be pretty good.

What I am trying to say is that there hasn’t been a massive upgrade to the team’s OL personnel. Hell, they’ve been rotating left tackles each series for the past two games! But the end result of good planning, good coaching, better mobility and better blocking has been a passing attack that has become more potent by the week, even though the pressure rate on Daniels (19.8%) has been only slightly better than the season-long pressure rate faced by Sam Howell in 2023 (22.7%).

This is good news. It means that the coaching staff is taking into account the relative skills of their players and creating plays and schemes to highlight strengths while masking weaknesses.

We learned a lot about the wide receivers in Weeks 2 & 3

This chart looks at actual WR production from Weeks 2 & 3 and then extrapolates that across 17 games. The flaw here is obvious. Washington’s passing attack was very limited in Week 1, so these season-long extrapolations are too high, since they estimate 17 games at the production level of the past two games.

My goal here is not to predict the final season-long stats for the wide receivers on the roster, but to get a ‘normalized’ idea of the relative contributions of each player based on the two games they have all played together — with a QB who was looking to pass rather than constantly scramble out of trouble as Jayden Daniels did throughout the Tampa Bay game.

This paints a picture of the receiver room that holds probably only one real surprise — the emergence of Noah Brown as the team’s likely #2 receiver.

• It appears that Terry McLaurin, if he remains healthy, is likely to extend his streak of 1,000-yard seasons to five.
• Luke McCaffrey is, frankly, developing at a much faster rate than I had expected. I wasn’t really looking for him to contribute much more than a catch per game for a few yards. Instead, if the Bengals game is any indication, he may quickly become a clutch receiver that Jayden Daniels can rely on.
• Dyami Brown, after another good camp and preseason, seems to be once again fading into insignificance in the regular season.
• I had expected Olamide Zaccheaus to get more snaps and more targets in the Commanders offense, backing up both the slot and the z-receiver positions. He’s played well enough on offense and special teams, but has been less integral to the team’s offense than I had predicted.

Zach Ertz is who we hoped he would be

I remember watching Jason Witten in his final season or two with Dallas and wondering how it was that he could lumber downfield like a slow ox and yet be open.

Ertz seems to be drinking from the same well that allowed Witten, from age 32 to 37, to catch at least 63 passes per season and generate between 529 and 713 yards per season for five seasons.

In three games for the Commanders, Ertz has been targeted 13 times, with 12 completed passes for 128 yards. His 10.7 yards per reception is actually slightly higher than his career average (10.5), while his 9.8 yards per target is far above his career average (7.0) and his previous season-best (8.2 in 2013).

At his current pace, Erts is on track for 68 receptions for 725 yards — which would be a very Witten-like result in Eertz’s age 34 season.

He is proving to be the wily veteran target that we hoped he would be for Jayden Daniels.

Jayden Daniels matters more already than I thought he would

Once Jayden Daniels had been drafted, I developed expectations. In my own mind, I figured that the kind of performance we saw in Week 1 against Tampa Bay — lots of passing plays aborted in favor of a scramble; hesitance to throw into tight windows or inability to throw with anticipation and confidence — for the first 6 to 8 games of the season.

During training camp, and after the Tampa Bay game, I hoped that by mid-December, Daniels would demonstrate the ability to see the field, identify the right read, and throw the ball with confidence.

In short, I anticipated a season of relative struggle as our rookie quarterback adapted to the NFL.

His progress has been light-years faster than I could have imagined. Against the Bengals, he looked like a seasoned veteran. I don’t think it’s over-reaching to say that Washington won that game because of Jayden Daniels.

Before this season began, I expected that it would take most of the season before the team could rely on the rookie to be a force on the field in the manner of a skilled passer.

His unbelievable development to-date changes the complexion of the season. At this point, it is the defense that puts limitations on what I think is possible, not the rookie quarterback.

I realize that development is not linear; Daniels will struggle in games and appear to regress at times. That said, he clearly is the player we all hoped he would be when he was drafted, and I feel a sense of hopeful excitement that I haven’t felt since the playoff loss to Seattle following the end of the 2012 season.

It’s great that this performance came on MNF; this is how player profiles are created

Too often, great individual performances by Washington players have gone unacknowledged because few people other than Washington fans saw them happen.

I am absolutely stoked that the schedule-makers put the Commanders on Monday Night Football at exactly the right time for Jayden Daniels to put together an unforgettable game.

I’d also like to thank the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars, who were also playing a Monday night game that kicked off about 45 minutes before the Commanders-Bengals game, for achieving a score of 34-3 by halftime, thus encouraging everyone but die-hard Bills and Jags fans to switch to the later game. According to Sports Video Group, the Commanders game averaged 15.2 million viewers between 10:30 and 11:00 pm, when Jayden Daniels and the Commanders offense were weaving their most impressive magic of the night. The final TD pass to Terry McLaurin was almost the only topic of NFL-related conversation for about 36 hours following the game.

Daniels still has to live up to the new expectations, but this is how players enter the consciousness of the broad array of NFL fans — though a special performance that they talk about for years.

Keeping a foot on the gas

One thing I absolutely loved about Monday night’s win was that there was never a moment when the coaching staff or the players decided to “protect the lead”. Having scored on every possession, the offense just kept pressing on the gas, daring the Bengals to stop them.

This is so antithetical to everything I’ve grown accustomed to in recent years that I found it difficult (but exhilarating) to watch.

When Dan Quinn talked about being “aggressive”, I think he meant it in a completely different way than any coach I’ve seen in Washington for a long time, and maybe ever.

I absolutely love what it means for the players, for the games and for the fans. At least, I will until the first time I disagree with a strategic coaching call that backfires. When that happens, I’ll be right back to screaming at the top of my lungs about how stupid that decision was.

How does an owner make a difference? Moving Ashburn to ASU for the week to help the players be ready on a short week is a great example.

When the schedule was first released, I looked at the MNF football game in Week 3 followed by Washington’s longest road trip of the season to Arizona in Week 4 and mentally circled the Cardinals game as a loss, based solely on the fact that the team would be sore and tired before the game even kicked off.

I was both surprised and pleased when I heard this week that owner Josh Harris had approved the plan for the team to travel straight from Cincinnati to Arizona, and to work out at the Arizona State University campus, making use of the indoor practice facility to avoid being outside in 104-degree temperatures.

From what I’ve read, all of the support that would normally be available to players in Ashburn was made available in Arizona this week.

This is a huge expense for the team. Accommodation for players, coaches and support staff is not cheap, but the added cost of arranging practice, training and medical facilities would have been truly significant.

This is how owners make a difference — by greenlighting and funding decisions and plans that make a difference on the field on game day.

Josh Harris just went up a notch in my book, but so did the entire group of coaches and executives who created the plan and took it to the boss.

It’s okay to be excited, feel hope, and have high expectations.

I’ve been here right along with you for our journey for quite a while. As Washington fans, we have become accustomed to never allowing hope or excitement or expectations to creep in — at least nothing more permanent than for 15- or 60-minutes of football when emotions and a few spectacular plays might overwhelm us.

There’s been too much disappointment and too many unfulfilled dreams.

I’m here to say, today, that it’s okay for all of us to shake off those demons. It’s okay for all of us to invest ourselves fully into the anticipated success of the team. While the Commanders will not succeed all the time, they aren’t going to embarrass us (at least, not after they get the defense sorted out).

I am asked every year to give pre-season predictions, which are actually memorialized in articles that are published here on Hogs Haven.

This year, I did what I always do. I went through the schedule and added up the number of wins that I thought the team could achieve. Then, because I’m publishing my prediction on a fan site, I add 2 wins.

I officially predicted a 5-win season this year. If you do the math, you’ll realize that my internal expectation was for a 3-14 finish. Back in July, I felt certain that we would have one of the top-3 picks in the draft again in 2025.

That said, I don’t wanna be right.

I’m invested in my fandom, not my PTSD.

Here’s my advice: Don’t let the ghosts of RG3 & the team’s former owner kill your joy.

Sure, the victory over the Bengals was “just one game”. Weekly success isn’t guaranteed.

It’s a fact that the Commanders defense has played like a stinky brown mess through three games this year.

We can all acknowledge that Adam Peters has not fixed the roster in his single offseason as GM: we’ve got a lot of holes and thin spots that need attention and upgrading.

But it’s fine to celebrate anyway.

I encourage you to give yourself over to joy. Let yourself revel in the happiness — perhaps unexpected — of your favorite team winning…and winning in convincing fashion.

We’ve all earned the right to enjoy the success of our football team, and the right to anticipate even more success in the future.

There’s a tendency to flinch at the idea that Washington fans can have and revel in the joy of having good things. Let’s help each other move past that. Let’s learn to be joyful and hopeful again.

After all, it’s football season.