Daily Slop – 20 Jun 24: Bullock tackles the question of whether Jamin Davis can succeed as a pass rusher

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Can Jamin Davis successfully transition into more of a pass rusher?

The Commanders are trying out Davis as more of a pass rusher, but what does he have to offer in that type of role?

One of the interesting topics of Commanders minicamps and OTAs has been how Jamin Davis fits on the roster. The linebacker position has been overhauled by the new regime, with Bobby Wagner and Frankie Luvu signed in free agency and Jordan Magee was drafted in the fifth round. The team declined Davis’s fifth year option and thus Davis is now in a contract year. Wagner and Luvu are the likely starting linebacker duo and the NFL is rarely in three linebacker personnel packages any more. That leaves Davis in an awkward position and as such the Commanders are experimenting with Davis as an edge rusher.

The idea of Davis being used in more of a pass rush role isn’t new among Commanders fans and media. Many have actually been calling for him to be used as more of a rusher for a while, with some pointing to Micah Parsons being an athletic linebacker that transitioned into more of a pure pass rusher and citing Jamin Davis as another very athletic linebacker. While it’s true that Davis is a very athletic linebacker, he’s a very different type of athlete to Parsons and while Parsons was drafted as a linebacker, he also had experience as an edge rusher in college. Davis rarely rushed at all in college and hasn’t been particularly effective in the NFL when doing so either.

I’ve never quite liked the idea of using Davis as a rusher or trying to move him to the edge because he’s never really shown many pass rush traits. Clearly, the Commanders aren’t sold on him as a long term linebacker on this team and so are trying him out on the edge just in case, which is fair enough, but I’d be surprised if it leads anywhere. But as the Commanders are trying him out there, I figured I would look back at the All-22 from last season to see where Davis is at as a pass rusher at this point in his career. Davis was credited with three sacks last season and seven in his NFL career to date. However, two of his sacks last year came on plays where he wasn’t actually rushing the quarterback.

When it comes to actual pass rush reps, Davis was largely underwhelming. The most common way he was used as a rusher was on simulated pressures, where he would join the rush from one side of the line and a defensive end would drop off and replace him in coverage on the other side. These simulated pressures are designed to overwhelm the offensive line and disguise where rushers come from, but sometimes the offense spots where the pressure is coming from. On those occasions, you need the rushers to go beat a blocker and Davis struggled with that.

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Pro Football Talk

Dan Quinn: Jayden Daniels has the hunger of a young player, swagger of a veteran

In an interview with the Jim Rome Show, Quinn praised the way Daniels has handled his first several weeks with his new team.

“I think I said it recently and I think this sums it up right: He has the humility and kind of the hunger of the young player — ‘I’ve got a lot to prove, I’ve still got a lot to learn.’ But he also has the swagger and calmness of a veteran player,” Quinn said. “So I think those 50-plus starts from ASU and LSU, that seems to come about. You see him on the field and in the huddle, that’s where he’s at his best.

“He worked really hard to learn the system. I would say probably one advantage of starting something new, all the other players haven’t been in the system for three, four, five years where they just knew it inside and out. So there was this collective learning going on together. But he was right there at the front of it.”

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Front Office Sports

Negotiations Over Native American Imagery Continue to Stall RFK Stadium Bill

Both Daines and Ryan Wetzel are on the record that they aren’t asking for the old name—dropped by former Commanders owner Dan Snyder as pressure mounted from FedEx and others before the 2020 season—to return.

“Our focus is the logo,” Wetzel says. “I can tell you this, there is division amongst my own family with that name. But somehow, some way, we’d like to honor the logo.”

That’s the prickly part. Multiple NFL sources told FOS that neither the Commanders nor the league have any interest in allowing the old name, and there’s resistance to bringing the old logo back, even in a throwback-type manner. Additionally, the trademark is owned by the Commanders.

One of the proposals would be to transfer the ownership of the logo to a nonprofit organization that would use monies generated from the logo to support Native American causes, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. That proposal, however, could be a big ask of the Commanders. New owner Josh Harris is seeking a clean break from the Snyder era, which includes the team’s former use of Native American imagery.

There have been talks about recognition of Walter Wetzel that’d take place during Native American History Month during a home game each November and a plaque at Commanders Field, the team’s current home in Maryland, the same two sources with knowledge of the discussions told FOS.

Ryan Wetzel says the team’s bringing back the logo—possibly to coincide with another rebrand by the franchise—is “a far-fetched dream,” but he added that conversations with the Commanders have continued to be productive over a larger recognition of his grandfather.

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The Athletic (paywall)

Commanders offseason wrap-up: Coaches slowly preparing Jayden Daniels for what’s ahead

“In some ways, it’s very systematic,” quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard said about the daily, weekly and monthly practice plan for Daniels’ development. “In other ways, it is a little bit more like, ‘Hey, let’s go the speed we need to go.’”

Dan Quinn has steered away from naming starters for the sake of competition. As for what he’s looking for to feel the rookie is ready, the head coach leaned more toward the cerebral than the physical.

“Well, I’d say, at times, getting out of a bad play. You know, here comes a blitz to this side, get to the check, get to something else,” Quinn said. “Knowing where to go with the correct read. At the end of it, it’s just having command, honestly. Whether it’s in the huddle or at the line of scrimmage.”

The fact that Daniels, 23, started five seasons in college increases his aptitude in this transition. Still, coaches are mindful of not pushing too hard or too fast while finding what works best with his playmaking capabilities.

“The expectation is just to see how familiar he is with the concepts and making sure, OK, this one we want to keep, this one we don’t in terms of things he has the most comfort with.”

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Sports Illustrated

Offseason Takeaways to Wrap Up NFL Minicamps Across the League

What we learned about the 49ers, Commanders, Vikings, Bengals and Eagles, and a few other teams as we get closer to training camps.

The Washington Commanders’ massive free-agent haul paid dividends in the spring. One thing a new coach can see over his first few months is how players are buying in and carrying the flag for the program he’s trying to put in.

And having been in that position before with the Atlanta Falcons, new Commanders coach Dan Quinn arrived in D.C. knowing that he’d need some flag-bearers for what he was trying to build. It’s a big reason why Washington went for volume in free agency—bringing in a massive number of players from across the NFL whom he and new GM Adam Peters saw as fits for what they’ll be trying to build over the next few years.

So far, so good.

Quinn saw it in the spring in the details on tape—in how players were finishing plays downfield, how they were going after the ball on defense and how the three new phases were being installed (the coaches tried to take their time and be deliberate with that).

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Podcasts & videos

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Washington Commanders Quan Martin Rising Star Following Impactful Minicamp Performance

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Front Office Sports

Spring Football’s Future: UFL’s Mixed Results, Ambitious Changes Ahead

• The UFL held its inaugural championship game Sunday.
• ‘Front Office Sports’ checks in with former XFL commissioner Oliver Luck.

On TV, though, the UFL saw a viewership boost over its old counterparts. The regular season averaged 816,000 viewers across Fox, ABC, and ESPN, good for a 30% increase over the XFL and USFL average in 2023. Both conference championship games drew more than one million viewers each, representing a 57% bump from the 748,000 average USFL/XFL playoff audience.

Changes Coming

Next year, Fox, a broadcast partner that owns 50% of the UFL, will be making a significant adjustment to its spring football TV schedule. The network will shift “many” UFL games from Sundays to Friday nights, Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks said recently. The move will be made to accommodate incoming IndyCar Series race broadcasts, which Fox has acquired the rights to, starting in 2025. Whether that move impacts UFL ratings remains to be seen.

One change Luck says the UFL should make is its start date, which this year was in late March. “I think one of the good things that the XFL did is we started the weekend after the Super Bowl,” he says. “And I always thought that people still had a football [mindset] going, because they were in that football mode.”

Better Together?

In the NFL Europe days, teams could allocate players to international clubs, a process Luck says most coaches and GMs seemed happy with. No spring league since has struck any such formal relationship with the NFL.

But finding a peaceful coexistence will be key for UFL—or any other entity looking to break into space. Luck says he met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell twice during his time with the XFL to talk logistics. “That’s a fairly intricate dance,” Luck says. “Because we believed—and I’m sure that’s still the case today—that literally everybody who was playing in the XFL in 2020, the goal was to get into the NFL or have an opportunity to go to a training camp.”

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