Commanders fans liked what they saw from the team, Ben Sinnott, Dyami Brown and others in first preseason road trip of 2024

Survey results!!

How did fans feel about the Commanders after the first joint practice and preseason game?

Last Thursday, the Commanders went into the Jets practice facility at Florham Park, NJ for a rainy-weather joint practice with Robert Saleh’s team. The reports from our own beat reporters were mostly grim, and some of the video clips that appeared on Twitter gave the impression that the Jets players spent the session out-classing Washington’s players.

Two days later, the Commanders met the Jets in the opening week of the 2024 preseason at Met Life Stadium. The game, of course, was televised, so fans were able to form impressions more directly. The highlight for Washington fans was the game’s opening drive, which lasted 11 plays and resulted in a trot-in touchdown by Jayden Daniels — likely the first of very many for the Commanders rookie QB.

It was the 3rd play of the drive that Washington fans will be talking about for years. On 3rd and 6 from his own 34 yard line, seeing nearly the entire Jets defense packed near the line of scrimmage, Daniels checked out of a called screen pass and found speedy receiver Dyami Brown with a pinpoint 42-yard pass that hit him in stride, beating outstanding man coverage.

Little else seemed to matter to Washington fans after that, though many other players had strong performances. Commanders fans had gone into the game wanting to know if they had a quarterback, and this play and Daniels’ stroll into the end zone on 3rd & goal from the 3 yard line to end a six and a half minute opening drive were enough to answer that question for most fans.

The Commanders eventually lost by a score of 20-17 in a game in which the Jets played only one starter. The final result didn’t seem to matter to Washington fans. They were buoyed by the success of Daniels’ only drive of the game — Mariota, Driskel and Hartman finished out the remainder — even though that drive had featured most of the Commanders starting offense against the Jets backups.

In this week’s Reacts survey, we asked how fans felt about the team after its trip to New Jersey.

Hogs Haven readers proved to be pretty even-keeled, with nearly two-thirds of respondents saying that they felt ‘about the same’ as they had prior to the road trip to New Jersey.

Taken as a whole, however, fans responding to the survey were certainly more optimistic than pessimistic by three to one. Twenty-eight percent of Hogs Haven readers who answered the survey question said that they felt more optimistic, while only 9% reported feeling more pessimistic.

So far, Dan Quinn & Co. seem to be passing the early evaluation process with fans.

It seems fair to assume that the current road trip to Miami, which also features a Thursday joint practice and Saturday’s preseason game, will be equally significant to fans’ process of forming impressions of this re-made Commanders team and coaching staff.

Other significant performances

The Commanders went deep into the roster on Saturday. With 12 players — mostly starters and primary backups — not dressing for the game, fans were treated to seeing dozens of players who were on the field in Washington’s burgundy & gold for the first time.

A number of these players had memorable debuts, and some returning players also made an impression. In our second survey question of the week, we gave a list of seven players and asked which of them was the biggest surprise for Commanders fans.

The responses were very evenly spread, with 5 different players getting at least 12% of the vote, and no single player getting more than 28%.

Ben Sinnott

In the end, rookie tight end Ben Sinnott, drafted in the 2nd round, 53rd overall, got the largest number of votes. Sinnott led the team in both receptions (3) and yards (57), catching all of his targets. What likely impressed fans the most, however, was what Sinnott did with the ball after he caught it.

On this play, the first Jets would-be tackler bounces off of Sinnott at the 45-yard line. Sinnott is contacted again around the 37-yard line, and the 6th Jets defender to contact him falls off at about the 25. Three more Jets defenders jump in to finally bring him down at the 21-yard line. My unofficial count is that 9 of the 11 Jets defenders on the field put hands on Ben Sinnott in the 24 yards he gained after contact on this single play.

He also added YAC on this 12-yard gain early in the 3rd quarter:

It might seem unusual that fans would be “surprised” by this level of play from a 2nd round pick, especially given that it is the kind of play he was known for at Kansas State.

I think the ‘surprise’ factor may have come from the fact that reports about Sinnott from OTAs, minicamp and training camp had been somewhat muted; there had been a number of tweets that included his name and mentioned dropped passes.

Fan concern about these types of reports seemed to be significant enough by late-July that we actually asked about the level of that concern in a Reacts survey about two weeks ago. At that time, about a third of respondents reported that they felt either a bit concerned or very concerned.

The reason for the difference in perceived practice performance and game performance might lie in the type of player that Sinnott is. His toughness and tackle-breaking abilities are traits that don’t show up in offseason workouts, 7-on-7 drills, or even team 11-on-11 practices. This style of play only shows up in games, when the guys playing defense are wearing different colored uniforms and brutality is on display.

Other vote-getters

Outside of Ben Sinnott, there were other ‘surprising’ performances.

Dyami Brown

Dyami Brown, the 4th-year receiver out of North Carolina, received 21% of the votes in response to this week’s 2nd survey question. We’ve already seen him on the receiving end of the 42-yard strike from Daniels on the game’s opening drive. He also added one more catch for 13 yards in his 19 offensive snaps.

Since being drafted by Washington, Brown has been a constant source of frustration to Washington fans who had gone into each season of his 3-year career expecting him to produce at a high level. Each season was a disappointment, with Brown accounting for only 29 receptions and 476 yards on 62 targets since being drafted 82nd overall in the 2021 draft.

His performance against the Jets is the type of play and production that was expected to be a staple of Brown’s career when he was drafted by Ron Rivera, but under-performance and disappointment had been the norm in Brown’s career to-date. Thus, his outstanding performance against the Jets is a pleasant surprise that has renewed fans’ hopes that the wide receiver is ready to finally achieve success and deliver high production in a Washington uniform.

Michael Wiley

Unlike Dyami Brown, of whom Commanders fans have been expecting a great deal for a long time, little was expected of Michael Wiley, the undrafted rookie running back out of Arizona. Thus, it was genuinely surprising when he led all Washington rushers with 8 carries for 34 yards and a touchdown in his first NFL preseason appearance.

Prior to the Jets game, it had been easy to dismiss Wiley as merely a practice squad candidate, but fans will now be watching to see if he can stake a claim as part of the running back room on the 53-man roster.

Jeff Driskel

It seems unexpected that an 8-year veteran at the QB position in the National Football League could surprise fans, but that is probably a reflection of the generally low expectations Washington fans had for Driskel. Based on media reports from offseason workouts and the early part of training camp, it seemed that Driskel was the 4th man in a 4-man QB room.

Due to a shoulder injury suffered during the game’s final quarter by rookie undrafted QB Sam Hartman, Driskel ended up playing the most snaps of any of Washington’s 4 quarterbacks, and he appeared to be in total control of the offense in his 31 snaps.

Driskel’s box score isn’t a thing of beauty; he was 7-15 for 87 yards and no touchdowns — and he suffered the only sack of the game given up to the Jets defense — but the free agent signed by the Commanders this offseason appeared to have…well…command of the team’s offense, particularly in his initial stint (before Hartman’s injury) when two of his three offensive drives got the team in position for field goal attempts.

While Driskel didn’t set the world alight with his preseason performance, he has sparked conversation about whether he should perhaps be on the 53-man roster, with some observers commenting that maybe he should be the primary backup, ahead of Marcus Mariota.

It will probably require a standout performance this Saturday in Miami — a game which Mariota and Hartman will both miss due to injuries — for Driskel to have a real chance to push for the #2 spot on the depth chart.

Tyler Owens

Like RB Michael Wiley, Tyler Owens is an undrafted rookie; however, the young safety joined the team with more fanfare and higher expectations. For one thing, safety is a higher need for the Commanders than running back. Moreover, many draftniks had expected Owens to be a late-round draft pick. The Commanders helped entice the former Texas Longhorn player to sign with Washington by guaranteeing $225,000 of his 2024 salary.

Listed by the team at 6’2” and 213 pounds, Owens seems to fit the prototype for safety that Dan Quinn and Joe Whitt are looking for, and his special teams play may help him break into the team’s 2024 roster.

Owens had been getting a lot of hype during training camp, so many Commanders fans were keen to see him play in his first competitive NFL game. He made an almost immediate splash with a violent special teams tackle in punt coverage:

That’s the kind of hit that makes a young player popular with a fan base hungry for good football.

More of the same?

Washington’s preseason continues on Saturday, with a 7pm kickoff in Miami against the Dolphins. The ‘Fins head coach, Mike McDaniel, is one of the many head coaches in the NFL who was on the 2013 Redskins coaching staff, but he also spent 2 years as a member of the Falcons coaching staff under Dan Quinn. That was a particularly rough part of McDaniel’s life when he was abusing alcohol. He has talked openly about his personal struggles at that time, and has, on multiple occasions, credited Dan Quinn, among many others, with offering needed support and direction that helped McDaniel get sober and re-direct his life.

The close relationship between the two led to another successful joint practice for Washington this week.

The two former colleagues will stand on opposite sidelines as opposing head coaches in an NFL game for the first time on Saturday night. Hopefully, Commanders fans will once again come away from a preseason road trip feeling positive and hopeful about their favorite team.