00:00All right. We're through basically the bulk of free agency. We're certainly now a few weeks removed, coming up on
00:09a few weeks removed from the NFL draft. There are still moves to be made. And Washington certainly is a
00:14team out there like New England is with A.J. Brown and, you know, with Philadelphia.
00:19But Washington certainly in the conversation right now to add Brandon Iyuk at some point. We all know that. But
00:25I'm going to give you right now my top three kind of post draft post, you know, free agency questions.
00:34You could you could say questions slash concerns about our team, but I don't know if they qualify as concerns
00:41as much as they are just mysteries for me.
00:44This is me. You may disagree with it and we'll take calls at 301-230-0980. Max will respond to
00:51what I'm going to say with maybe something different.
00:55But I'm going to count them down from three to one. The third most the third least, you know, question
01:02of my top three to the biggest question about our team.
01:06Number three for me, the biggest, you know, the third biggest post draft question or concern to me is all
01:14about the coordinators.
01:16You know, will Dan Quinn's decisions on coordinators turn out to be the right decisions?
01:23You know, he could go one for two. He could hit 50, you know, 500 on the two and hit
01:28big with Blau and miss big with Durante Jones or vice versa.
01:31But going with two first time coordinators and play callers does seem like a risk.
01:39You know, it does seem like he's put himself out there a bit to certainly, you know, take the fall
01:46if it doesn't work out.
01:48Now, he had to replace Joe Witt Jr. We know that.
01:51And he probably should have done it this time last year, but he did not have to replace Cliff Kingsbury.
01:58You know, Cliff Kingsbury's offense without his starting quarterback for the significant majority of the season was still top half
02:06in the NFL, you know, in almost every key statistical advanced and traditional category.
02:12He didn't have to do that. He wanted to do that.
02:15And I think the organization really wanted to do it for two reasons.
02:20One, they wanted to see a change to the approach.
02:24And number two, they felt like they had a guy in waiting.
02:27And if they didn't move on him now, they were going to lose him.
02:31Wow. I've said this before, but I don't see the David Blau and Durante Jones hires as comparable as it
02:40relates to risk to Dan Quinn.
02:43David Blau is different from Durante Jones because everybody in the building wanted David Blau to be the next offensive
02:53coordinator and didn't want to let him leave the building.
02:57So it's not a risky hire for Quinn.
03:00Blau isn't.
03:02Durante Jones is, you know, because there were other options, more proven guys like Jonathan Gannon, like Patrick Graham, like
03:09Denard Wilson,
03:10guys who have been play callers, been defensive coordinators again.
03:13I don't know the chances of Washington landing on one of them, but they obviously interviewed both Graham and Denard
03:20Wilson.
03:21So you could have gone with somebody more proven than Durante Jones.
03:27But in the Blau case, you know, if it doesn't work out, it's not like Dan Quinn was out on
03:33a limb.
03:34You're not out on a limb when your front office and your ownership and everybody in the building is saying,
03:39don't let this guy leave.
03:42We absolutely agree with you that he should be our next offensive coordinator.
03:49So to me, will Dan Quinn's coordinator decisions work out is a big question mark.
03:56Now, again, one is less risky to him than the other in terms of how it affects his employment moving
04:03forward.
04:04But the bottom line is it relates to the upcoming season is will they be in their first, you know,
04:11attempt at being the coordinators and play callers?
04:15Will they be good?
04:16Will they be improvements?
04:20Number two on the list of post-draft questions.
04:26Did they do enough on offense during this offseason?
04:30I mean, the bottom line is they may not be done, as we know, because of him, B.A., Brandon
04:39Iyuk.
04:40And that changes the way you view their offseason and what they tried to do to help Jaden Daniels on
04:46offense.
04:47But if who they have now is who they have when the season starts and there are no more additions,
04:53it's a question as to whether or not it'll be enough.
04:56Now, it was enough in 2024, you know, in terms of Terry was their best receiver.
05:04They were uncertain at running back.
05:06They, you know, Zach Ertz came up big that year and guys like Deami and, you know, Zaccheaus and Noah
05:12Brown and later on in that year, Jameson Crowder, et cetera, all were, you know, capable players and made plays.
05:19But it was a lot about the quarterback.
05:20It was a lot about the scheme, quite honestly, but mostly about the quarterback.
05:28And, you know, so if what they have now is what they end up putting out there next year, I
05:34do like Okonkwo.
05:35I think Okonkwo's got a chance to have a breakout season as a pass catching and a playmaking tight end.
05:42I do believe that about him.
05:43He has not played on a good offensive team with a good quarterback.
05:48So I like Chig Okonkwo's potential.
05:51I like Krosky Merritt's potential.
05:53You know, I think that he proved at the end of last year, he does have that home run ability.
05:59He's obviously got to protect the ball better.
06:01But I think the offense that they are going to be moving towards probably works best for somebody with his
06:10style of running and his vision, you know, abilities.
06:15Deami being back, I mean, Traylon Burks, et cetera, Luke McCaffrey, you know, none of these are givens.
06:20These are all question marks offensively.
06:23Terry isn't and Jaden isn't.
06:25I mean, those are the two knowns about the offense.
06:28You've got your best playmaker at quarterback, your most explosive player at quarterback, and your second biggest playmaker at wide
06:37receiver.
06:38Although, let's not forget that Terry's entering his age 31 season.
06:44I think they need more.
06:47I mean, I'm on record as saying if all checks out on Iyuk, I'm for it.
06:55You know, the mental part, the physical part, and then you're getting him on the come, basically, for a prove
07:02-it deal.
07:02I mean, this Diggs trial so far looks like it is going in his direction.
07:09The chef that he's accused of assaulting was a train wreck on the stand yesterday.
07:15I don't know if you've seen some of that video.
07:18But if Diggs becomes available and his legal issues are behind him, I know what kind of competitor he is
07:26and how good he can still be.
07:29I think he was important last year for Drake May and the New England offense.
07:34One year of Diggs, I'd be into it.
07:37But the bottom line is, as we sit here today, it's a question mark as to whether or not they
07:42did enough offensively.
07:46And then the number one post-draft, post-free agency question slash mystery, if you will, for me, is the
07:55defense.
07:56The defense has changed its look completely, player-wise and coaching-wise.
08:01But how will that changed look play out on the field in 2026?
08:09Because, yeah, it's obvious that they identified the same thing we all did.
08:14It wasn't hard.
08:16The defense is terrible.
08:19Hurt or not hurt, it is a bad, bad defensive football team.
08:24It has been for two straight seasons.
08:26So we have to try to attempt to change everything.
08:29Players, coaches, we need to get faster and we need to get younger.
08:33We have to have more talented players than before.
08:36We need a defensive coordinator who will employ a new defensive scheme and call it better and coach it better.
08:44But in terms of how it will come together, right now, all we know is there are a lot of
08:51new players that appear to be better and younger and faster for sure.
08:55And there's a new defensive coordinator who's a complete mystery, even though the style in which he comes from is
09:01kind of intriguing.
09:01We can't know for sure until we see the style of play and how the new players fit with the
09:11new style of play.
09:11We can't possibly know for sure until they start playing games what the defense will be on the field in
09:212026.
09:22Nothing from OTAs or minicamps or training camp or preseason games is going to tell us jackass.
09:28It's not.
09:29You know, we've got a better chance of learning about how it's going by just listening to Quinn, you know,
09:36over the summer.
09:37We're listening to Durante Jones.
09:39We're listening to, you know, some of the older players on defense, Duran or a Kinlaw or maybe even, you
09:46know, a Luvu or a Will Harris or somebody like that.
09:49We may learn more.
09:50We're not going to be able to take videos on social media and extrapolate that out to what it's going
09:56to be in the regular season.
09:57Don't do that this summer.
09:59We do it every summer.
10:01You guys did it with the defense last year, and I'm like, it's still a mystery.
10:05I have no idea.
10:06I know everybody thinks that Trey Amos is the next Pat Sertan, you know, after a few, you know, OTA
10:13days.
10:13But I'm going to wait and see how it plays out.
10:16I thought he played well before he got hurt.
10:18Defense was terrible.
10:19All I heard over the summer was just how much better the secondary was going to be, just how much
10:26better defensively they were going to be.
10:28It was a disaster in the secondary.
10:31I mean, they didn't know who was coming or going.
10:34Pre-snap, post-snap, it was a fire drill.
10:39The defense is still the number one question mark because it's the thing that has to be better.
10:49It cannot be what it was last year.
10:51I don't expect it to be.
10:53I think just by nature of faster and younger and more talented, you know, you're going to make more plays
11:02on defense than you made last year.
11:04They didn't make any basically for an entire season.
11:07Rarely was there a play made defensively.
11:11But how it fits with this new style, you know, how the parts fit, how they play together.
11:17You know, are you going to be relying on a rookie to be the coach on the field and be
11:22your leading tackler potentially?
11:24Is that high risk in sunny styles?
11:29There's a lot that, you know, can go much better and it could be not worse, but it could be
11:36marginally improved.
11:37It's got to be much better than it was last year.
11:40Has to be.
11:42And defense, like I say, every year is variable.
11:45I mean, in terms of, you know, year to year, it just changes so much more than offense because of
11:51a number of reasons.
11:52The biggest being that the quarterback's the most important player on a football team.
11:56And if you have consistency at that position, you're not going to get great variation year to year in performance.
12:03Defense, there's great variability.
12:05One year you can be the worst defense in the league and the next year you can be top 10.
12:09And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason for it.
12:13Now, there would be a reason for it this year if they jumped from basically the worst team at the
12:18end of last year defensively to a top 10 defense.
12:22And the reason would be they added much better players and a better defensive coordinator.
12:29The one that I didn't mention, and I probably would have prior to last week, but I think I shared
12:34with all of you a little bit of insight on Nick Allegretti in the center position.
12:38So, I'll just add it as an honorable mention to my top three post-draft, you know, questions, mysteries, concerns,
12:48the center position.
12:50I didn't include it in my top three because I, you know, I told you guys last week that I
12:55think there's more confidence in Nick Allegretti in that building.
13:00Locker room, front office, coaching staff, than maybe we think or thought there was.
13:07They love his communication ability and they're not as concerned as people on the outside might be.
13:15Keim was on my podcast Friday and John said the same thing that he was and had heard some of
13:21the same things about Allegretti.
13:22Look, he may not have been the plan A after they let Biotish go, but he was probably the plan
13:28B.
13:29You know, plan A may have been Linderbaum trying to add a really good player, but the cost got too
13:34high.
13:35But they're comfortable, more so than I think a lot of us thought they would be with Nick Allegretti.
13:42So there's my top three, 301-230-0980, 301-230-0980.
13:49Give me your number one post-draft, post-free agency question mark that is concerning you about our football team
14:00heading into 2026.
Comments