- 5 hours ago
BMitch and Tobi Altizer react to Mike Clay ranking the Commanders’ starters 21st out of 32 NFL teams and give their thoughts on if they agree with the ranking.
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00:00Beamich and Finley, 106.7 The Fan.
00:03Toby Altizer sitting in for JP today.
00:08Let's talk about the Commanders.
00:10Mike Clay of ESPN has ranked all of the starting lineups around the NFL.
00:17Where do you think the Commanders rank?
00:20Beamich, I don't know if you've looked at this list.
00:22Do you have any guess of where he would have Washington ranked?
00:27So it's just taking basically all 22 starters among all 32 teams.
00:34Where do you think he has the Commanders listed?
00:36He has them based off of last year, and they signed the 20th.
00:41Pretty spot on.
00:4221st for the Washington Commanders.
00:44Boy, it's good with numbers.
00:46So just a couple of things off of it from Mike Clay.
00:51Biggest strength, he says quarterback.
00:53Biggest weakness, he says cornerback.
00:56X-Factors, he says all the defensive additions.
00:59Olway, Chason, Stiles, Cross, Robertson.
01:03And then he said a non-starter to know is De'Ami Brown.
01:06Saying that maybe he could step back in and find a big role after what he did
01:12and down the stretch and into the playoffs two years ago.
01:16But 21st for Washington.
01:18Do you think that's about right?
01:19Or do you think maybe it's a little bit better?
01:21How do you feel about that?
01:22Well, I think, you know, I think they're a little better.
01:26But I think when you start looking at what happened last year,
01:29I think people completely forget about what happened in 2024.
01:32I still think five has that magic.
01:36I think, like you stated earlier, the comments he showed under pressure
01:40and things like that, that he still, he possesses that.
01:44But I think the defense had to get better.
01:47So I would put this team, to me, right now I would go 15-16.
01:53Yeah, and I think that's probably about where I would have them
01:56maybe a little bit higher than this.
01:58I think the difficult part is, and you look who he's projecting to start on defense.
02:02He's got Payne, Amenahu, Kinlaw.
02:05Then off the edge, he's got Owe, Armstrong, linebacker, Lou Vu, Stiles.
02:10And then a corner with three of them.
02:11Sandra Still, Amos, Robertson, and then Nick Cross and Will Harris at safety.
02:16I think when you look at that defensive unit,
02:19I think they're going to be better just because of the scheme they're going to run.
02:23But if you're just looking at it on paper,
02:26that's not an overwhelming defensive unit.
02:29I think, again, similar to what we talked about with receiver earlier,
02:33I think you could talk me into a lot of these guys up and down the defense
02:36having a pretty good season next year.
02:38But you've still got to see it first.
02:40And for a guy writing from a national perspective,
02:43he's not just going to assume that Washington has figured things out.
02:46So I think it's about right.
02:48If you want to hop in, feel free, 800-636-1067.
02:50Mike Clay has Washington ranked 21st among projected starters
02:56around the National Football League this season.
02:5921st out of 32.
03:01But I think on offense, the interesting part is
03:04who's going to step up behind Terry in the passing game?
03:09And also, I think something, Bemich, that goes a little bit under-talked about
03:15and a little bit slept on,
03:17Zach Ertz was a really reliable option.
03:19Now, he couldn't give you much after the catch.
03:21And so, Chig Okonkwo is a massive, massive upgrade in that sense.
03:26But there wasn't...
03:27I don't know who's going to be the security blanket this year.
03:30Maybe it's Terry.
03:31Maybe it's somebody else.
03:32But that's something I'm also interested to see early in the season.
03:35See, I believe Chig will be that guy,
03:37but I think we're going to have a little bit more explosion out of the tight end position.
03:41And so many people keep wondering about who the number two receiver is going to be.
03:46I watched a lot of football.
03:49Most teams, number two, a lot of them number one is their tight end.
03:53And I think if Chig can bring you that level of performance out there,
04:00all of a sudden you're saying he has an...
04:04I would think when you look at his speed,
04:06he has a distinct advantage over most safeties and most linebackers.
04:09Very much so.
04:11That can become a piece of the puzzle we didn't have.
04:16Go back to Jordan Reed, his ability, but he got hurt a lot as well.
04:21He can be that level.
04:23And if he becomes that, does it automatically...
04:29You don't have to automatically have a guy step up at number two right now.
04:32They can have a chance to grow a little bit.
04:36Williams, young guy, the dude knows how to get separation.
04:40You know, they didn't do a lot of stuff in practice,
04:42but you can see he knows how to get a foot in the ground and get separation.
04:46And we know one thing, five, we'll get the ball to the guy that's getting open.
04:50Well, so one thing that I think is interesting,
04:52because generally you think when you're talking about a passing attack,
04:56you want to have two, three, you know,
04:59maybe even four options that you feel pretty confident in.
05:01And last year changed my mind a little bit
05:04because the Super Bowl champions were the Seattle Seahawks.
05:06Listen to who their leading receivers were last season.
05:09Jackson Smith and Jigba, just under 1,800 yards.
05:12Their next leading receiver was Cooper Cup, under 600 yards at 593.
05:18Then it was A.J. Barner, the tight end at 519.
05:21And then it was Kenneth Walker at 282.
05:23So you can focus on just, we're going to funnel to our top guys,
05:27and then everybody else gets in where they fit in.
05:30You build your offense based off of the talent you have.
05:35But when we get all these phone calls about,
05:38everybody wants you to have what other teams have.
05:41You know what's another strength this team has?
05:44Rashad White.
05:45Like, so you look at San Fran,
05:48Christian McCaffrey had many yards than anybody on that team.
05:52Rashad White coming out the backfield could give you 400, 500 yards.
05:56Easily.
05:57So if you had that and Jig,
06:00it kind of takes the pressure off of having that number two guy
06:03who's always there, right?
06:05If you had to guess, though,
06:06as terms of sticking at the wide receiver position,
06:09of who by the end of the season we're talking about as the number two guy,
06:12and you have a pick of any of them,
06:13who do you think it is?
06:15Because to me,
06:16I really think that Antonio Williams,
06:19as the season goes on and by the end of the year,
06:21emerges as maybe just more the security blanket.
06:24They wanted to be a Burks because of the height and stuff like that.
06:27But I can see Williams or even Luke.
06:31I think Luke was coming on before he got hurt.
06:38I know Jalen put a lot of work in.
06:42He does.
06:42So what I'm expecting,
06:44see, the thing about him,
06:45he came in as this athlete.
06:47This guy has extreme speed,
06:49can do things.
06:51The more he improves his receiving ability,
06:55the better he's going to become for this offense.
06:57Well, and that's him and Luke.
06:58Yeah.
06:58To their credit,
06:59when they drafted these guys,
07:01they're more of projects.
07:02Luke McCaffrey is a converted quarterback.
07:04I'd only played receiver very minimally,
07:06so he was still learning the position.
07:08And one of the things I like when you get converted quarterbacks in at the
07:10receiver position,
07:12they can sometimes have a better feel than other receivers or tight ends
07:16because of the fact that they know,
07:17hey,
07:17this is how I can help this guy feel a little more comfortable.
07:20So,
07:20you know,
07:20as he's grown,
07:21I think like you said,
07:22he started to really come on last season before he got hurt.
07:25Hopefully that's something that carries over.
07:27And for Jalen Lane,
07:28I watched him at Virginia Tech and he was someone that was explosive with the
07:32ball in his hands.
07:33When he was at Tech his final year,
07:34they would run an end around to him every single week.
07:37And yet somehow he'd still always get the edge and pick up 15 yards.
07:39I don't know how he did it every single week,
07:41but for him,
07:42you know,
07:43it's,
07:43it's still learning some of the nuances of playing out of the slots and
07:46setting up angles and getting in and out of breaks and those sorts of
07:49things.
07:49And frankly,
07:50for him to working on his hands,
07:51which he's always working on after practice.
07:53So hopefully those things improve.
07:56It's just,
07:56I don't know that they have a proven guy behind Terry at the receiver
08:00position,
08:01but you hope that some of these guys can step up in a bigger role.
08:04And I hope like the army,
08:06what he did in the playoff run here with Jaden,
08:09like,
08:10see,
08:11this is the thing that people don't get.
08:13Everybody's losing their mind.
08:14I was,
08:15he was a teammate of Jaden in college.
08:18That was six,
08:19seven years ago.
08:21In a while,
08:22five,
08:22six,
08:22seven years ago.
08:24But he had a hell of a connection with,
08:26with,
08:27uh,
08:28the army,
08:29the army in the playoffs,
08:31which was about a little bit over a year and a half,
08:34two years ago.
08:36So if we believe that that connection is great,
08:39why won't you believe that the army and Jaden could do something again?
08:43Well,
08:43and honestly,
08:44too,
08:44one,
08:45one of the things that's obviously doing sports radio and breaking stuff
08:48down,
08:49you don't want to just focus on the top guys.
08:51You want to dig a little bit deeper than that.
08:54A lot of this offense is going to depend upon the connection between five
08:57and 17 as well,
08:58because we saw that,
08:59we saw that connection be incredibly special during Jaden's rookie season
09:02last year with the injuries and the holdout and all the stuff that
09:05happened there.
09:06They never seem to quite get on that same page.
09:09If they're on that same page again,
09:10and hopefully that being up together throughout the off season and
09:14throughout training camp,
09:15and then getting into week one of the season,
09:17if they can hit the ground running,
09:19because remember it was still a struggle at times to get Terry the ball
09:22during Jaden's rookie season.
09:23There were times where Terry would be a little bit quiet and he still had a
09:26career year.
09:27If you can hit the ground running with that,
09:29you know,
09:30this could be a big time season for Terry McLaurin.
09:32I think the moving him around,
09:34putting him in different spots is going to open up his game.
09:38He's played lining up boom all the time and still had that level of success.
09:44Moving him around,
09:45putting him in different spots now,
09:47I believe is going to make him be even better than what he was.
09:51Yeah.
09:52And that's why I'm not as worried about some of the stuff we talked about with
09:55the slot and outside and those sorts of things that does matter.
09:58I'm not going to diminish that,
10:00but there's going to be stacks.
10:01There's going to be bunches.
10:03There's going to be motion guys are going to be moving all over the place.
10:06This is going to look much more like an offense that you see from the LA Rams,
10:09from the Chicago bears,
10:10where it's a lot more traditional,
10:12not to say that there was necessarily anything wrong with cliff system.
10:16That's cliff system.
10:17When you,
10:17when you hire cliff Kingsbury,
10:18you get cliff Kingsbury's offense.
10:20And that's what it was.
10:21This offense is going to look much more traditional.
10:24And so I think David Blau is going to have to identify who his guys are,
10:28who the guys that are going to step up and play those bigger roles.
10:31And then find ways to put them in a position to be successful.
10:35And so he's got plenty of guys at the receiver position that could have a good year.
10:39I'm just still a little bit hesitant on if I feel like I can bank on any of those guys.
10:43But I think another part of it be Mitch too,
10:46is David Blau is going to depend on the running game a lot.
10:50The second you hear that he's showing Ben Johnson clips and different things,
10:54as much as people love some of the trick plays and different stuff that he does,
10:59even guys like Sean McVay,
11:00Kyle Shanahan,
11:01what do their offenses run off of the run game?
11:04Yeah.
11:05Yeah.
11:05It's an important part of it.
11:06So I think that's going to be a major part of it.
11:09And being able to run some of that outside zone,
11:11I'm excited to see what Bill can do this year.
11:14I think Bill and then Fat Man,
11:17I think Fat Man is going to be something special for you.
11:19Just kind of taking that Chris Rodriguez.
11:21Yeah.
11:21The thing about him,
11:23see,
11:24that kid knows you're blocking for two,
11:27he's getting three.
11:29He's not worried about all the other stuff,
11:31but you keep hitting,
11:32you keep hitting,
11:32all of a sudden you come out the other side sometimes.
11:34But he knows how to run the ball to basically get where he's going.
11:39I like the undrafted kid.
11:41You know,
11:43he,
11:44you look at his highlight reel,
11:45you're like,
11:46okay,
11:46this kid got some space,
11:47balance,
11:48load to the ground and can get it.
11:50So I think that they have,
11:52the thing I'm loving about this year,
11:54competition,
11:55baby.
11:55It's going to be a lot of competition out there.
11:57You're talking about Robert Henry,
11:59right?
11:59Yeah.
12:00Guys have to understand the NFL is about competition.
12:06And when you show up on the 24th,
12:10be ready.
12:12Cause there's going to be some competing going on.
12:14If you're not going to be ready to compete,
12:16don't even come,
12:17stay home.
12:18Don't,
12:18don't show up.
12:19Well,
12:19and we talked about this when the schedule was released.
12:21I was sitting in for JP and looking at the schedule with Philly,
12:25Dallas,
12:26Seattle,
12:27Indy,
12:28New York,
12:29San Francisco,
12:30the first six weeks of the season.
12:32You got to be ready.
12:33You better be ready to roll.
12:34You got to be ready.
12:35And listen,
12:36man,
12:36you were like,
12:37when we were talking before,
12:39what do you think?
12:40I said,
12:40they have to up the intensity now.
12:44And they're the little OTAs and stuff.
12:46They were doing more than they were doing in previous,
12:49uh,
12:49in the first two years.
12:50So they understand,
12:52uh,
12:53the assignment.
12:55Let's see if they can go out there and grab it by the horn.
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