Daily Slop – 3 Dec 24: How to vote for the Pro Bowl; Commanders Bobby Wagner & Frankie Luvu 4th & 5th in league-wide ILB voting

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Commanders.com

Game Balls | Four standouts from Washington’s win against Tennessee

Frankie Luvu

The energizer bunny of Washington’s front seven this year, Luvu had another outstanding game harassing the opposing offense with his relentless and fierce style of play.

The linebacker was all over Titans quarterback Will Levis from the first whistle. He had a hit on the quarterback on the visitors’ opening drive and then on the second drive tipped a third-down pass for an incomplete. In the second quarter, Luvu hunted down Levis for a sack as the quarterback looked to take the ball himself. That sack brought Luvu’s season total to eight, a career high. In addition to the takedown, the linebacker recorded three tackles and two tackles for loss.

It is not every day that you see a free agent pickup have as impactful of a season as Luvu is having in his first year in Washington. Adam Peters and Quinn saw that Luvu epitomized who they wanted these new-look Commanders to be, and the linebacker’s been modeling that archetype week in and week out.

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Commanders Wire

Jayden Daniels leads Pro Bowl voting among NFC QBs: Where’s Terry McLaurin?

Who are some of the other Commanders ranked in the fan voting for their various positions?

• WR Terry McLaurin: 4th among NFL WRs
• C Tyler Biadasz: 9th among NFL centers
• LB Bobby Wagner: 4th among NFL ILBs
• LB Dante Fowler Jr: 5th among NFL OLBs
• LB Frankie Luvu: 9th among NFL OLBs
• S Jeremy Chinn: 8th among NFL safeties
• S Jeremy Reaves: 9th among special teams players

To vote for the Pro Bowl, you can go here: https://www.commanders.com/pro-bowl-games/vote/

Or here: https://www.nfl.com/pro-bowl-games/vote/

You can also vote on social media:

Social voting — During the final two weeks of voting (Dec. 9 – Dec. 23), fans can vote directly on “X” (formerly Twitter) by tweeting the first and last name of the player, tagging the player’s official Twitter handle or creating a hashtag including the player’s first and last name. All three of these methods must include the hashtag: #ProBowlVote. During the final two days (Dec. 22 – Dec. 23), social votes will count as double.

The 2025 Pro Bowl Games will be held in Orlando, Fla on Feb. 2, 2025.

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ESPN

NFL Week 13: Biggest questions, takeaways for every game

Commanders

What helped the offense bounce back? The Commanders had struggled in the previous two weeks — in losses to Philadelphia and Dallas. A big issue was the run game. In three straight losses, Washington’s running backs averaged 3.3 yards per carry with only three runs for more than 10 yards. On Sunday, the Commanders’ backs rushed for 229 yards with Brian Robinson Jr. recording 16 carries for 103 yards and a touchdown. Washington’s backs had six carries for 10 or more yards. It added up to tying a season high in points.

Describe the game in two words: Desperately needed. After three consecutive losses, Washington was 2½ games behind the Eagles in the NFC East race — and its lead in the wild-card race was down to half a game. The Commanders, on a bye next week, have winnable games against New Orleans, [Philadelphia], Atlanta and Dallas coming up.

What we learned about the QB today: Washington’s offense is better when Jayden Daniels can use his legs. He finished with 34 yards rushing; Washington is 8-2 when Daniels rushes for 33 or more yards. It also helped that he involved receiver Terry McLaurin early in the game — they connected for two touchdown passes in the first quarter.

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Washington Post (paywall)

18 things we learned from the Commanders’ skid-snapping blowout of the Titans

Washington enters its bye on a high after ending a three-game losing streak.

Jayden Daniels can handle the cold. The game kicked off at 41 degrees — tied for the quarterback’s second-chilliest game since he entered college — and he didn’t seem fazed at all. He finished 25 for 30 (83.3 percent) for 206 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. He added six scrambles and three designed runs for 34 yards and a nifty touchdown.

There’s no “Kliff cliff” this year. Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury had one of the best games of his play-calling career. In his 79th NFL game as a head coach or coordinator, his unit scored 41 points (second most), gained 463 yards (seventh most), had 19.01 expected points added (fifth most) and recorded a 56.3 percent success rate (sixth best).

Dante Fowler Jr. or Frankie Luvu will lead the team in sacks. The defensive end (8.5) and the linebacker (eight) are atop the list with four games left.

The running game kept the offense on schedule. Brian Robinson Jr. jolted the unit to life on the first drive with a 40-yard touchdown run — tied for the longest of his career — and it never slowed against what had been one of the best run-stuffing fronts in the league.

The steadiness of the running game fixed a lot of the offense’s woes, keeping the team ahead of the chains and allowing Daniels to use his legs more often. Offensive linemen praised schemes that allowed them to pull and run over defenders, such as “GT Counter” for Robinson’s long score.

Washington loved the pistol formation. The Commanders used it on 21 snaps, according to Next Gen Stats, which is significantly higher than their second-highest rate this season (13, twice). “That was just part of the game plan,” running back Jeremy McNichols said. “We saw a mismatch in that formation.”

Flags > towels. The team distributed black “Raise Hail” flags, and they looked much better than the burgundy towels did against Pittsburgh.

Cornelius Lucas is still the swing tackle. The journeyman had played exclusively left tackle this season in a platoon with rookie Brandon Coleman. But this week, with Coleman holding his own and right tackle Andrew Wylie out with a concussion. After the game, Quinn told a story about seeing Lucas and right guard Sam Cosmi stay after practice to work on combination blocks because Lucas had spent most of his time this season on the left side.

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The Athletic (paywall)

Commanders handled Titans and got back on track with their offensive line hunting

If you’ve watched this football team for, oh, the last 40 years or so, you know Counter Trey.

It was a staple of Gibbs I, when Washington dominated opposing defenses with a punishing run game, behind its physical and nasty Hogs, who then provided pristine pass protection to Joe Theismann and Doug Williams and Mark Rypien when defenses’ tongues were lagging, their legs and spirit gone. Here’s one example of how Russ Grimm and Joe Jacoby ran it back in the day. It was innovative in the ’80s; everyone has a version of it today.

So, the Commanders, today, run a counter play, too. It’s certainly a part of Kliff Kingsbury’s run offense. But for the last few weeks, Washington hadn’t had a whole lot of success running the ball out of any look. There were injuries, and penalties, and blown assignments, and slip-ups in the details. And that kept the Commanders’ offensive gears sliding in the mud after the team had looked so dominant offensively in September and October.

But December, if you’re doing it right, is the time when the big uglies shine.

By the time Washington was done with its 42-19 victory, its running backs had combined to run for more than 200 yards.

Robinson had 103 yards on 16 carries. With Austin Ekeler out at least a month after his second concussion of the season, suffered last week, Chris Rodriguez stepped in and stepped up, running for 94 tough yards, most between the tackles, and a touchdown. Jayden Daniels’ legs were under him; he ran for 34 yards and a touchdown himself. The Commanders averaged a gaudy 5.9 yards per carry, running the ball 45 times and dominating time of possession: 40 minutes, 13 seconds, to Tennessee’s 19:47. They ran it early, with Robinson’s score, and they ran it late, going 71 yards to salt the game away on Rodriguez’s 7-yard touchdown with 3:31 remaining.

The Commanders still have work to do. According to the NFL, their odds of making the playoffs increased from 60 percent before kickoff to 71 percent after the win. They finally have reached their bye week, well after most other teams have had the chance to heal up. Washington won’t have that luxury. It’s a sprint, after the week off, starting at the New Orleans Saints on Dec. 15.

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Film Review

Bullock’s Film Room (subscription)

Commanders run game dominant vs Titans

Breaking down the dominant performance from the Commanders run game against the Titans

The first run of the day was Brian Robinson’s 40-yard touchdown run. It was a play that had multiple insights into what was to come. The first was that Washington got back to the types of run schemes that had been so successful for them earlier in the season. The play came on their GT Counter Read scheme, which has consistently been one of their staple runs this season but they only ran it once against the Cowboys last week. Another big insight gained from this run is how the Titans defended it. They called a stunt up front which just happened to perfectly play into the scheme.

Here is the touchdown run then. From the clip you can see the scheme from the Commanders. On the GT Counter Read scheme, the Commanders pull their left tackle and left guard to the right side of the line, with the guard kicking out the edge defender and the tackle wrapping around for a linebacker. They add a read-option element into this, with the unblocked defensive end on the back side being read by quarterback Jayden Daniels. If the end crashes inside on the run, Daniels can pull the ball and run with a tight end arc blocking out in front for him. If the end holds his position, as he does here, then Daniels hands the ball off and the Commanders don’t have to block one of the defensive lineman.

I talked about the Titans running a stunt that played perfectly into the blocking scheme. You can see that here. Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, one of the top defensive lineman in the NFL, lines up in the B gap between right guard Sam Cosmi and right tackle Cornelius Lucas. At the snap, he stunts inside, crossing the face of Cosmi to try and attack the A gap inside while a linebacker replaces him in the B gap. Lucas and Cosmi deserve plenty of credit here because Lucas has only played left tackle this season and Dan Quinn spoke glowingly after the game about how he noticed Lucas taking time after practice this week to get Cosmi to do some extra work on combination blocks to build up a rapport between them. You can see that pay off here as Cosmi takes on Simmons off the stunt and Lucas immediately picks up the linebacker.

With the stunt picked up, the Titans are in a terrible position to fit the rest of the run. Tight end John Bates is able to work down the line and reach the linebacker trying to scrape to the edge. Nick Allegretti pulls from his left guard spot and kicks out the edge defender while left tackle Brandon Coleman follows him and wraps around to the second level. Typically Coleman would be looking for a linebacker, but both linebackers were already sealed inside, so instead he takes on the safety looking to fill from deep. This creates a huge lane for Robinson to run into. From there, it’s just a question of if Robinson can outrun the back side safety, who takes a poor angle. Robinson goes completely untouched as he sprints to the end zone for a 40-yard touchdown.

That GT Counter Read scheme has been one of Washington’s best run schemes all year, so it was odd to see them only run it once against the Cowboys. They clearly had the intent to correct that mistake, with it being the first run they called in this game. They went back to it a few times too, with good success on just about every time it was called.

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Podcasts & videos

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NFL Week 13 Commanders vs. Titans game reaction | Beltway Football Live

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