Who played where in the first game under new management?
In the first game after the most comprehensive roster and franchise “recalibration” in recent memory, Jayden Daniels and the new look Washington Commanders opened the season as road underdogs to the ascendant Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
It was a tough loss that served to illustrate how much more work needs to be done to complete the rebuild and recapture the once proud team’s former glory.
In the spirit of the team’s renewal, I have decided to renovate and rebrand the Stats and Snaps. Last season, I wrote lengthy in-depth statistical summaries of each game. They took me all week to pull together, and got read by about ten faithful regulars.
This season I am going to change it up, by publishing a Snap Counts Plus article early in the week, with just a few basic stats for key players, followed by deeper statistical dive on a hot topic later in the week, when I feel like it.
But this isn’t just your usual recitation of the official NFL snap counts. In addition to those, I will also be providing breakdowns of where the players actually lined up on the field, courtesy of PFF. I am hoping that will be of particular interest to Hogs Haven readers, as we all come to terms with the new schemes that Head Coach Dan Quinn and coordinators Kliff Kingsbury and Joe Whitt Jr. have installed in Washington.
As the season unfolds, it will be interesting to see how Kingsbury uses his wide receivers and tight ends, how Whitt rotates the defensive linemen and moves them around the front, and how the utilization of defensive backs changes in Whitt’s reinterpretation of Quinn’s famous coverage schemes. When I pulled this week’s stats together, I was also intrigued to learn which players form the different special teams units. Without giving too much away, I can reveal that fans of unlikely UDFA roster additions with crazy names and strange beliefs about outer space will find something to get excited about.
But before we get to the snap counts and alignment stats, I would like to highlight one exciting new development that came to fruition during an otherwise difficult afternoon for the Commanders in Tampa. As I foretold, in the opening game of the new era of Washington football, we witnessed the return of the fullback to the Commanders’ offense. In fact, TE Ben Sinnott took not one, but two out of thirteen offensive snaps lined up at the noblest, yet least understood position. And not content to stop there, Kingsbury extended the honor to two other players on Sunday, one of whom should come as a complete surprise to most readers.
Offense
In the following charts, starters are indicated by asterisks.
Jayden Daniels made a fairly low-key debut in Washington, completing 17 of 24% of passes (70.8%) for 184 yards, with no TDs or interceptions. While his completion rate was high, it should be, because nearly all of his passes were short or intermediate. His ADOT of 5.5 yards was the fourth lowest in Week 1.
Jayden also led the Commanders in rushing, with 88 yards and 2 TDs on 16 carries (5.5 Y/A). He had a long run of 17 yards and 4 runs over 10 yards. He fumbled three times, with no turnovers.
The topic on everyone’s mind during the offseason was how well the Commanders’ rookie QB would be protected. JD5 faced 12 pressures in his first outing, which was just one lower than Howell faced in his first game. He only took 34 dropbacks compared to Howell’s 40, so the protection was a little worse. However, that only resulted in 2 sacks, vs Howell’s 6, because 2.8 times better at avoiding pressure.
Brian Robinson was the Commanders’ lead back and ran for 40 yards and 1 TD on 12 attempts (3.1 YPA). He added 3 receptions on 4 targets for 49 yards. Robinson lined up primarily at halfback, with a few snaps lined up at wide receiver. He also took 2 snaps lined up as a fullback to block for Ekeler and he took 1 snap as a wildcat QB.
Austin Ekeler had 2 rushing attempts for 10 yards. He got more touches as a receiver, catching all 4 of his targets for 52 yards. Three of his 6 touches resulted in first downs. He finished the day with a 100% rushing success rate and a 75% receiving success rate.
The snap counts taken by the WRs illustrate how little the term “starter” means. Olamide Zaccheaus was listed as the second starter, but played fewer snaps than Luke McCaffrey or Dyami Brown.
McLaurin is the clear top dog, and took the majority of snaps out wide. McCaffrey was the primary slot receiver; while Dyami Brown and Zaccheaus platooned at wideout opposite of Terry.
A special shout out goes to Kliff Kingsbury for lining up Dyami Brown at fullback on one play. Sadly, I didn’t see it.
The Commanders’ WRs did nothing to distinguish themselves on Sunday. McCaffrey led the group, catching all 3 of his targets for 18 yards. He was just 4th on the team in receiving yards after the two RBs and TE Zach Ertz.
Zach Ertz was the team’s only TE to touch the football. He played the majority of snaps in the slot, but also lined up inline and took 3 snaps out wide. He had 3 receptions on 4 targets for 28 yards.
Bates and Sinnott lined up predominantly inline and mainly saw action as blockers. Sinnott got his first two snaps lined up at fullback, representing 15% of his offensive snaps.
Starters Nick Allegretti, Tyler Biadasz, and Sam Cosmi played 100% of offensive snaps at their respective positions. Andrew Wylie played one snap flexed out to inline TE.
What Commanders’ fans might be most excited to see is that Brandon Coleman made his debut at left tackle. According to PFF, he allowed 1 pressure in 14 offensive snaps, which is too small a sample to mean anything.
DEFENSE
I have listed players according to where they actually lined up on the majority of snaps, rather than the positions listed on the official roster. The Commanders list Dante Fowler and Jamin Davis as LBs, but they played DE on Sunday.
Armstrong played as the primary left DE and Ferrell played as the primary right DE. Fowler and rookie Javontae Jean-Baptiste rotated in to spell the starters and played over 30% of defensive snaps. Jamin Davis was used sparingly. All of the DEs moved around the defensive front to varying extents.
The Commanders did a poor job of generating pressure off the edge. Clelin Ferrell was the only DE to sack Baker Mayfield. Dante Fowler led the group with 3 pressures, followed by Armstrong with 2. Jean-Baptiste logged his first pressure in the regular season with a lone QB hit.
Joe Whitt’s DL rotation looked fairly different to Quinn’s rotation in Dallas last season, with two starters playing over 60% of snaps. What remained the same is that he moved his tackles around the front, with both of the starters seeing significant time at DE. The rotational tackles, Mathis and Day, both played 36% of defensive snaps.
Daron Payne led the team in pressuring the QB with 5 hurries. He also made one tackle which was a defensive stop. Jonathan Allen tied Dante Fowler for second on the team with 3 QB pressures. He also made two tackles, which were both stops. Sheldon Day had 1 tackle and Mathis had 1 assist.
Bobby Wagner played predominantly at MLB, with just a few snaps elsewhere. He led the team in combined tackles (10), and was second to Quan Martin in solo tackles, with 5. More importantly, he led the team in defensive stops.
What is a stop? It is a tackle that represents failure for the offense. A stop occurs when the offense is held short of 40% of the yards to gain on first down, 50% of the yards to gain on second down, or fails to convert or score on third or fourth down. Stops are more informative than tackle totals, because they tell us when a defender is helping the cause of the defense or otherwise. For example, last season Cody Barton led the team in tackling, but was close to the bottom of the league in generating stops.
Frankie Luvu moved around more, playing 13 snaps at OLB and 3 in the slot. He blitzed 9 times and generated 2 QB hurries. He had 4 solo tackles and 1 assist, of which 3 were stops.
Wagner was targeted 3 times in coverage, giving up 3 receptions for 58 yds. Luvu allowed 2 receptions on 2 targets for 14 yds.
Benjamin St-Juste played 100% of defensive snaps, predominantly at boundary corner, with most of those on the right side.
Contrary to what some ill-informed fans were saying when he was drafted in the second round, Mike Sainristil was the second most utilized CB, and third most utilized defender on the team. He was the team’s primary slot receiver, but also moved around the backfield and even took 2 snaps on the defensive line at OLB. In addition to coverage, Joe Whitt also sent him on 4 blitzes. Expect to see more of that.
Emmanuel Forbes and Noah Igbinoghene saw action on around half of offensive snaps, predominantly at boundary corner, opposite of St-Juste.
As a group, the CBs were about as disappointing as expected, if that’s possible. St-Juste and Igbinoghene were the only CBs to touch the football, with one PBU apiece. As a group, they yielded 15 receptions on 19 targets (79% receptions) for 146 yds and 3 TDs. Out of 14 tackles and 3 assists, they failed to generate a single stop. However, it might be unfair to grade CBs on stops, since the often make tackles in pursuit.
The roles of the two listed starting safeties were pretty clearly defined based on snap counts. Quan Martin is the primary free safety, with Jeremy Chinn playing more of a traditional strong safety role than we have seen for a while.
Butler is the interesting player to watch. In fairly limited snaps, he split reps evenly between box and free safety assignments.
Quan Martin pretty much picked up where he left off at the end of last season, excelling as a run defender and showing vulnerability in coverage. He was the second leading tackler on the team with 8 solo tackles and 1 assist, with three stops. However, he also allowed completions on both of his targets in coverage for 56 yds and 1 TD. Chinn and Butler faced 2 targets, and Butler allowed one completion for 4 yds.
SPECIAL TEAMS
There has been a fair amount of churn of the specialist over the past year, and we can expect that to continue, until new Special Teams Coordinator Larry Izzo finds the right solutions. Kicker Cade York failed his audition with two misses on two field goal attempts, and will be replaced next week by Austin Siebert.
RB Austin Ekeler and WR Jamison Crowder handled return duties in competent, if unspectacular fashion. Crowder fair caught the Buccaneers’ only punt, while Ekeler returned 2 of Jake Carmada’s 8 kickoffs for 24 yards apiece. It will be interesting to see if Izzo sticks with these two, or gives someone else a try, particular on punt returns, to bring a spark to the return game.
The above table provides a breakdown of special teams participation by unit. Some highlights are:
As expected, freakishly athletic UDFA signees Tyler Owens and Colson Yankoff made their Commanders’ debuts on special teams, playing every snap on kick and punt return and coverage units, but failed to record any stats. It’s coming.
They were joined by recent addition, Pro Bowl FB/LB/Special Teams Ace Nick Bellore, who played for Izzo in Seattle, along with 2024 FA additions LB Mykal Walker, Jeremy McNichols and All-Pro Reavo.
CB Michael Davis, as well as starting safeties Quan Martin and Jeremy Chinn joined them on kick coverage, as well as field goal block attempts, where they were joined by DE Dorance Armstrong, Benjamin St. Juste, Javontae Jean-Baptiste, Clelin Ferrell, Phidarian Mathis, Bobby Wagner, Frankie Luvu, Sheldon Day and Jonathan Allen.
Ben Sinnott, Dyami Brown and Zach Ertz saw action exclusively on the kick return unit.
In case anyone was wondering, in addition to specialists Cade York, Tyler Ott and Tress Way, the field goal kicking unit comprised the entire offensive line (starters and backups), and blocking specialist TE John Bates.
Tackles on special teams were made by Mykal Walker, Jeremy Chinn and Jeremy McNichols. Returning All-Pro Special Teams Captain, Jeremy Reaves was credited with one missed tackle. So, three out of four Commanders who got their hands on ball carrier on teams were named Jeremy.