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The Washington Commanders are implementing a new offensive scheme under their new Coordinator David Blough and NFL experts think it could one of the most dangerous offenses in the NFL next season! Kevin Sheehan gives his thoughts on Ben Solak’s article about the new Coordinators around the NFL and what he had to say about David Blough going into the 2026 NFL season.
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00:00Ben Solak, who writes at ESPN.com, early this morning put out a story about all of the NFL
00:08coordinators, new NFL coordinators, and he wrote about 10 of them. But listen to this,
00:15because I've talked about how there's been a massive turnover in coordinators this offseason,
00:22and a lot of new coordinators as well. He writes, there are 64 offensive and
00:29defensive coordinator positions in the NFL. More than half of them have turned over
00:38this season. The total count is 35 new coordinators this year, 21 new offensive coordinators in the
00:50NFL. 21 out of 32 teams, 21 new offensive coordinators, and 14 new defensive coordinators.
01:01He said, the turnover in the league has never been greater as expectations rise higher and
01:06faster than ever before, produce quickly, or make room for the next guy. He writes, it's not hard
01:13as such to find 10 new coordinators with big questions approaching the 2026 season. Sean
01:20Mannion has the fate of quarterback Jalen Hurts in his hands in Philadelphia. Eric Biennemi needs to
01:26bring something, anything new to the Chiefs' stale offense. Jonathan Gannon has to solve a Packers
01:35defense without star edge rusher Micah Parsons long enough to stay in the playoff hunt. He writes,
01:42but none of them made the list of the top 10. But the top 10 who did have Super Bowl
01:48aspirations
01:49hanging in the balance of their efforts, those are the 10 he focused on. And he did write
01:55parenthetically, okay, maybe not the Browns and Commanders. I would hope that our chances of reaching
02:02the postseason and being a threat are better than Cleveland's. We'll see. Still, the stakes are high
02:07for these newcomers, a couple of whom will become the Clint Kubiak or, yeah, will become the Clint
02:13Kubiak of this upcoming season. So out of the 10 coordinators that have the most questions about
02:22them, two of those 10 are Washington's coordinators, both offense and defensive coordinators.
02:30Washington's the only team that has both coordinators in his top 10 in terms of question
02:37marks. And I'm going to read to you what he said about both David Blau and Durante Jones.
02:43I'll start with Blau, Ben Solak, ESPN, looking at all of these new coordinators in the NFL,
02:5035 new coordinators out of 64 available positions, 21 of them on the offensive side. By the way,
02:58he did not outline or detail how many of them are new, but I think more than half of them
03:03of the coordinators in the NFL of the 35 are actually first time coordinators, including the
03:10two in Washington. And he writes about Blau. What does a Cliff Kingsbury slash Ben Johnson
03:18hybrid offense look like? Exciting alchemy is underway at Washington's facility in Ashburn,
03:25Virginia. Commanders head coach, Dan Quinn made quite the splash this off season,
03:30replacing veteran coordinator Kingsbury, a respected schemer with head coaching experience
03:35who ran a seemingly ideal offense for mobile quarterback, Jaden Daniels with Blau, a 30 year
03:42old assistance quarterbacks coach on his staff. Blau, who was a practice squad player as recently
03:50as 2023, was an assistant for only two years under Kingsbury before getting this huge promotion.
03:57Blau was quickly snagged by Kingsbury because of the impression he left when Kingsbury coached the
04:03Cardinals. During the pandemic impacted 2020 season, when the Cardinals endured multiple quarterback
04:09absences, they signed Blau off the Lions practice squad and started him just two weeks later.
04:15This was Kingsbury talking about him in 2024 about Blau. Quote, I remember we got him in Arizona for a
04:22couple of weeks and he probably knew the offense better than I did after two weeks. I think he's
04:28got a chance to move up really quickly in this profession. I wonder if Cliff knew he was hiring his
04:36replacement. I think he did. Now, I think he thought he was hiring his replacement once he got back
04:44in to a head coaching job position. I'll continue. Ben Solak writes from ESPN.com. Kingsbury is not the
04:54only coach on whom Blau left a lasting impression. Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who saw Blau
05:01through the years in Detroit when Johnson was coaching offense and Blau was a player, holds his
05:07former reserve quarterback in high esteem. This is Ben Johnson talking about David Blau. Quote,
05:14having played quarterback, he's got that inward feel of how to, of how to, excuse me, help elevate that
05:21position. And I think he'll be able to do that in that play calling role moving forward. I think he'll
05:27be one of those guys who gets a head job before you know it. Closed quote. Look, Detroit and other
05:36teams
05:36started inquiring about David Blau after his first year, 2024, in Washington. Washington did not give
05:43permission for anybody to speak with Blau. And we do now know that if Blau, if they had kept Kingsbury
05:52or if they had hired somebody else, Blau would be gone. He'd be the offensive coordinator, most likely
05:56in Detroit. Solak of ESPN continues, these two coaches, Kingsbury and Johnson, provide important
06:05schematic influences that will form Blau's offense in Washington, but they run extremely different
06:11systems. The Kingsbury offense lives out of the shotgun, 70% last season, fifth highest in the
06:17league, and he tries to get the ball out fast. The Johnson offense goes under center. The Bears,
06:2249% shotgun rate last season, was fifth lowest in the league and prefers long developing dropbacks.
06:31The Kingsbury offense spreads the field out pre-snap and doesn't change the picture much.
06:3624th in motion rate last season. The Johnson offense uses condensed formations to conceal
06:43intentions and constantly sends players in motion, 11th in motion rate in 2025. The Kingsbury offense
06:50wants to use quick tempo to catch defenses unaware and relies on quick code word play calls to line up
06:57fast. The Johnson offense is so wordy that the Bears occasionally had trouble getting out of the
07:03huddle in time last season. These are Blau's two main offensive influences, and it's clear he's going
07:11to try to marry them somehow for the commanders. He has spoken openly about getting Daniels under center
07:18more to reimagine the running game and build some play action keepers off the run action, something that
07:24was never a priority for Kingsbury. Blau, however, has also spoken about retaining the stress
07:30of Kingsbury's no huddle approach, something that Johnson's long-winded offense never really uses
07:38save for two-minute drills. The effort is as bold as it is difficult. The product we see in week
07:46one will
07:46not be a finished one, and it's likely Washington's offense improves over the fall
07:51similarly to how the Bears offense improved under Johnson in year one. Blau's not an experienced coach,
07:59but Quinn has been doing this for a long time and knows how to weather the developmental storm
08:04while trusting the process. If Blau can land the plane and blend these two offenses, there's a chance
08:13Washington's offense is one of the league's most dangerous down the home stretch.
08:20And then he writes to finish up, even if Blau gets the X's nose part right, the commanders are still
08:25lacking clear receiver options behind Terry McLaurin and are once again employing a committee of mid-tier
08:31running backs. The task is tall in Washington, and Quinn made a huge bet on Blau to meet that moment.
08:38This might be the coolest thing we see all season. So there are a couple of things about Ben Solak's
08:47write-up on the 10 most interesting coordinator, new coordinator storylines, is that there is an
08:57expectation from Solak that there's going to be a true marrying of the two systems, the Kingsbury system
09:03and the Ben Johnson system. Keep in mind, too, Kevin O'Connell was an influence for David Blau,
09:10and he's talked about that before. I wonder how much of a true marrying. Marrying almost implies
09:20it's going to be 50% Kingsbury, 50% Ben Johnson. I don't see that personally. I see that they
09:28are
09:29not going to be able to completely discard some of the Kingsbury stuff because Blau likes some of the
09:36Kingsbury stuff. But I think it feels more like an 80-20. It feels more like this is going to
09:42be 80%
09:43Ben Johnson, 20% Kingsbury, and eventually it may evolve into 100% Ben Johnson. I actually think that
09:51offense suits Jaden Daniels better. Now, I think he can excel and flourish and succeed in any offensive
09:59system. Obviously, the Kingsbury system, which employed more shotgun, less play action,
10:06less motion, more hurry up, he excelled in. Just so everybody knows, that's not the air raid
10:14offense. It's not the spread. It's not a college offense. That's not what the Kingsbury offense at
10:21the NFL level is. But it was certainly an offense for a young quarterback coming out of a college system
10:29where it was a much easier adaptation offense for Jaden into the NFL. He can do any of these things
10:37and he can do any of these things at a high level. Let's not try to rewrite history. Washington's
10:46offense in 2024 was a top three, four offense by almost any metric. Top five worst case by any metric.
10:54It was unstoppable at times without a great supporting cast. Um, and last year with all of
11:04the injuries, including Jaden Daniels, only playing four games, start to finish throughout the season,
11:10it was middle of the pack in most offensive metrics. It wasn't a terrible offense. It wasn't
11:16good at times, but it wasn't terrible, but they were working with, you know, third and fourth tier
11:24players for much of the season. Um, but I think from the, the, the read on this, the one thing
11:33that
11:33I'd push back on Solak on is, is it going to be a true marrying of the two systems or
11:38is it really
11:39going to be, you know, heavily weighted on the Ben Johnson scheme? I prefer it be that because I
11:46actually think a truly, you know, balanced zone run scheme with some effectiveness in that is going to
11:53make Jaden in this offense even more lethal because play action is something that always helps
12:00quarterbacks real play action. And Jaden's got great ball handling skills. And I think whether
12:06it's under center or it's play action from the shotgun, you can do both. Um, especially out of
12:12the pistol, you know, the play action may be a little bit more effective out of the pistol because
12:17you turn your back and you mask the football on the fake. Um, but, um, I think that that has
12:24the
12:25possibility to really be, uh, uh, the best fit for Jaden's skillset. Again, I think almost any offense
12:32would work and it's obvious that Cliff's offense worked for him, but I think this one's going to work
12:38really well, uh, also. And I think the other big takeaway from this, from this story is just the idea
12:45that this is going to be a work in progress that, you know, week one is not going to be
12:52a finished
12:52product, but it will improve similar to the way, um, Caleb Williams improved with Ben Johnson during
13:01the course of the season. I mean, I hope it doesn't take too long, but there it's, it's certainly going
13:09to be more wordy. There's certainly going to be, uh, changes in terms of how, you know, you get footwork
13:16down, et cetera. I have a feeling it's going to be a smoother transition than people think. Um, but if
13:23it is a slow kind of a grind, uh, in developing that offense, now he's obviously very, uh, you know,
13:31bullish that by the, you know, end of the year, it'll be really good. Um, but let me just say
13:38that
13:38Chicago's offense started slowly kind of in the first few weeks of the season, but then they were
13:46running off pretty good offensive days by week three, week four, week five, week six, you know,
13:52and by the midpoint of the season, you know, they were putting up 40 plus on the Bengals. Now their
13:57defense was terrible, terrible, terrible. And then we saw what happened in the post season. I mean,
14:04incredible, you know, play by the offense against green Bay's defense. And then in the snow against
14:10the Rams, you know, they had a shot certainly to win. So that's what was written about David Blau in
14:17looking at all of these new coordinators and picking Washington is the only team with two
14:22super interesting, intriguing question laced coordinators, which he wrote about extensively.
14:30I'll tell you what he said about Durante Jones. When we come back, Kevin Ciancio, the team 980 and
14:36the team 980.com.
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