- 13 hours ago
The Washington Commanders officially played their first game of the 2026 NFL season and while it is preseason, there were some positives and negatives to gather from the team's performance. Kevin Sheehan gives his game take likes, dislikes and other observations from the Commanders vs Dolphins preseason game.
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00:00All right, it was Friday night.
00:01The final score, if you're actually interested,
00:04Washington won the game 20-7.
00:06That makes Dan Quinn now 8-20 as a preseason head coach.
00:13I don't know if I mentioned that on Friday.
00:14He had one of the worst preseason records as a head coach
00:18of any current NFL head coach, winning percentage-wise.
00:23He was also, by the way, before Friday night,
00:266-21 against the number as a preseason.
00:30Head coach, well, he got the win,
00:32and he got the cover on Friday night.
00:35So I'll start with kind of the obvious, and I say obvious.
00:38It's obvious to most of you,
00:40but still probably worth mentioning to some of you.
00:44Preseason games are primarily for player evaluation,
00:48not overall team evaluation.
00:51Now, some observations about the team can be made occasionally,
00:56like the team's energy or lack thereof.
01:00You know, that can be something to note.
01:02But these games aren't played for the purposes of improving your position
01:08in the standings.
01:10You know, they're played to evaluate players.
01:13And for the most part, a large percentage of the players being evaluated
01:18are players who are just fighting to either make the 53-man roster
01:23or even just make the practice squad of up to an additional 17 players.
01:3126 of the 90 didn't dress.
01:34And most of those that didn't dress are starters or, you know,
01:39immediate backups or rotational, expected rotational players.
01:43They didn't play on Friday night.
01:46So, you just, you got to start with that.
01:48You know, the other team actually played some of their starters early in the game.
01:53But for our team, no Jaden Daniels, no Terry McClorn, no Stefan Diggs,
01:58no Chiga Conquo, no Bill Krosky-Meritt, no Rashad White,
02:01Josh Connerly Jr., no.
02:04Sam Cosme, no.
02:06Nick Allegretti because he's hurt, no.
02:08I mean, basically like nine or ten of the expected starters, you know, were out.
02:14And then the defense, same thing.
02:16No Ken Law, no Payne, no Settle, no Owe, no Chason, no Luvu, no Armstrong.
02:22You know, he's coming back from the injury.
02:24No Amos, no Sandra still, no Nick Cross, no Jeremy Reeves,
02:28who's expected to be either a starter or a significant player at safety.
02:32You know, Meek Robertson.
02:34So, you know, you add it all up.
02:36It's like 90% of the players for our team that you'd expect, knock on wood,
02:43to be on the field on September 13th against Philadelphia did not play.
02:49On defense, we did see first-round pick Sonny Stiles,
02:53and we saw one of their big free agent acquisitions, Leo Chennault, out there.
02:57In terms of players that we're expecting to see a lot of come the regular season.
03:03Some of you get very much into trying to evaluate, you know, the game, the game flow,
03:10the result of the game, situational football.
03:13Don't do that.
03:14It makes no sense to do that in these games.
03:17The players that will be out there when the real games begin were not out there on Friday night.
03:22Add to that, the backups and the backups to the backups, in the case of our team,
03:28actually did face some Miami starters early in the game.
03:33I would say one thing with respect to, you know, it's just for player evaluation.
03:37I think when you're a team like Washington, because you've got two new coordinators
03:43and neither coordinator's ever done it in a game before,
03:47evaluating them isn't crazy, but really, to be honest with you,
03:52it's more for those that could listen in on the headset like the head coach
03:57to really evaluate it.
03:59And actually, Dan Quinn was asked about Blau and Durante Jones
04:03on their first night of calling plays.
04:06I'll play for you coming up in a few minutes
04:08what Quinn said about their first night calling plays.
04:14So anyway, with all that understood, here it goes for what it's worth.
04:20My observations.
04:21And look, you get into the second half of that game.
04:23That is, that's tough.
04:26I mean, if you're a football fan and you know the difference
04:30between what you're watching now versus what we'll be watching in a month,
04:34it's really, I've said this before, it might be the worst product
04:39offered by any of the four major professional sports.
04:44Preseason NFL football.
04:47Obviously, spring training baseball is important.
04:49You get all of the real players playing in the games.
04:52The NBA's regular season, you get starters playing in those games.
04:57I mean, they're not, you know, the NBA regular season.
04:59It's a hard watch.
05:01I can't speak to what hockey does.
05:03But the NFL preseason offering is literally only for,
05:09hey, football on TV and, hey, we don't have to pay the players.
05:13So this is a net-net profitable situation for the teams.
05:17All right, the good, the things that stood out for me,
05:20my observations from this game.
05:23Number one was Robert Henry Jr., the running back from UTSA.
05:28I thought it wasn't even close for me in terms of the player
05:33that made the most positive impression on me.
05:38He was running with the twos and threes against twos and threes.
05:44But, you know, with running backs, you can identify natural ability,
05:48and he has it as a runner.
05:51Excellent vision, patience, burst.
05:55You know, Riggo was on the call.
05:57He did a great job with B. Mitch the other night in Helly.
06:00I thought it was a really good broadcast, actually.
06:03Look, it's – the game is secondary to, you know,
06:08you have to turn those nights into more of a talk show.
06:14And I thought the chemistry between the three were really good.
06:18Riggo, who has always said, you know, for years, Riggo has said,
06:22if you ask him what was the most important attribute that he had,
06:26he'd say, his eyes, his vision.
06:30Like, Riggo had phenomenal feel and vision.
06:34He saw it before it happened.
06:36And that is natural.
06:38It's innate.
06:39And Robert Henry Jr. has that.
06:42He's got excellent vision, patience.
06:44He's got burst.
06:46He's really good with his feet.
06:47He's in his cutting ability.
06:49He's decisive.
06:51He played at UTSA, and I went back and looked at this just to see what he did
06:55because there wasn't a whole lot of discussion
06:58and hasn't been a whole lot of discussion about him.
07:00He had one of the best games.
07:03The first thing I noticed in looking through his game log
07:05is the season opener last year at UTSA.
07:09He went for 16 carries, 177 yards, 11.2 yards per carry,
07:15and two touchdowns in the season opener against Texas A&M.
07:22If you know anything about college football last year,
07:24Texas A&M's defense was stout.
07:28Now, it kind of fell apart a little bit towards the end of the year,
07:32and then in the playoff game against Miami,
07:34especially late in the game when Fletcher, Mark Fletcher,
07:36who's coming back for the Canes, had some big runs.
07:39But A&M's defense early in the season was really, really good.
07:45And this kid had $1.77 on 16 carries for two touchdowns and a 42-27 loss.
07:53He's not big, you know, but he is built for a zone run scheme.
07:57And I went back and looked at UTSA a little bit.
08:00They ran a bunch of inside and outside zone, and he was very effective at it.
08:05So clearly one of the reasons they liked him, brought him in,
08:09is they saw that he has the natural ability to be a really good zone runner.
08:16I don't know if there's room for him on the roster with Catron Allen
08:19and Catron Allen being a drafted player.
08:23Perhaps that's a factor.
08:24I don't think it should be when you're a sixth-round pick.
08:27Allen did a pretty decent job, you know, after the beginning.
08:32Dropped a pass.
08:33I'll get to that in a moment.
08:34But, yeah, I thought Henry Jr., Robert Henry Jr. helped himself a lot,
08:39whether it's for this team or somebody else.
08:44Number two on the good list for me was Antonio Hamilton Sr.
08:49So we've got a junior and a senior.
08:51I thought number 34 made an impression on defense and on special teams.
08:56And I went back and I looked at my notes when he was playing at the end of last year,
09:00and I had him on my good list twice, including in the game against the Giants late,
09:05where he was outstanding on defense.
09:08They brought him back, what, a month or two ago?
09:10It was kind of at the same time, maybe right before or right after Russell Douglas.
09:15He was outstanding on special teams last year.
09:19As I mentioned, he played well at corner late in the season against the Giants in particular.
09:23I had him in my notes as one of the players that stood out in that game.
09:27He hits for sure.
09:29He had a pass breakup in the game.
09:31He had a tackle for loss in the game.
09:34You know, talked about on Friday's show that, you know,
09:38one of the things you want to see, and it's total coach speak,
09:42but coaches will say, especially, you know, in scrimmages or preseason games,
09:48man, make mistakes, but make them at full speed.
09:52That dude was full speed all night long, Antonio Hamilton Sr.
09:58I thought the rookie from Tennessee, Joshua Joseph, stood out a little bit to me.
10:05Not so much because of anything he did in spectacular fashion,
10:11but it was the way he looked and moved.
10:14You know, he backed up James Pierce two years ago at Tennessee.
10:19Pierce had that incredible rookie season and then got arrested, and who knows?
10:23I think he's been suspended already for eight games for this year.
10:27But he is really a good-looking physical specimen on a football team
10:38that we think is going to play football the way Minnesota did.
10:40He's tall, he's lean, he's long, he moves, he anticipates.
10:47The kind of athlete that I think Durante Jones will love doing something with.
10:52I don't know about the intangible stuff with him.
10:55That's always important.
10:57I know that he had an outstanding joint practice against the Dolphins on Wednesday,
11:04but I thought that Joshua Josephs stood out a little bit.
11:10For me, he did.
11:11Number 48, if you don't know what number he was.
11:14And then number 86, Jaden Bradley.
11:18He's the guy that Terry McLaurin said so many really good things about during the spring.
11:24So he's a big, tall receiver.
11:27He looked fine as a receiver.
11:28He had a couple catches.
11:29But he almost blocked two punts in the game.
11:33I know these aren't the special teams units that you're going to face in the regular season.
11:39But when you're trying to make a football team or even a practice squad,
11:43and in one preseason game, you nearly, I mean, he was so close on both.
11:48And then he had the two catches.
11:50I noticed him.
11:52That's why I put him down here.
11:55That was pretty much it on the list of things that really stood out like, okay, that's worth noting.
12:03On the opposite list, the list of things that weren't so good from the game, again, for what it's worth.
12:11Obviously, you start with the Marcus Mariota injury.
12:15Marcus Mariota has a sprained MCL.
12:18He's not going to be available the rest of the preseason.
12:21That's fine.
12:21He's missed preseason time already since he's been here.
12:25But the expectation is he'll be ready on September 13th, and that's all that matters.
12:30You know, the Allegretti's, the Trey Amos's, the Settles, and now the Marcus Mariota's,
12:39you just want these games don't mean anything.
12:42You just want them to be healthy and ready to go when we get to September 13th against Philadelphia,
12:49and hopefully he will be.
12:50I'm glad, you know, you saw that he played an extra play after the knee.
12:56I'm glad that he took himself out because regular season game, Marcus, pretty tough guy.
13:01He probably would have stayed in there with it.
13:03So that was number one on the list of things that were not very good.
13:06By the way, we're opening up phone lines if you want to weigh in on the preseason game.
13:103-0-1, 2-3-0, 0-9-80.
13:13Anything you liked, anything you didn't like.
13:16So the second thing on my list is this.
13:19I mean, this is more of a one-unit evaluation, but I've got a couple of player evaluations to go
13:26along with it.
13:26I just didn't love the way the defense looked early against Miami's ones.
13:34Malik Willis was out there.
13:35A-Chan was out there.
13:37They had some of their starters out there on offense for Bobby Slowick, their new offensive coordinator, calling plays.
13:45Shanahan, Kyle, McVay, the whole tree.
13:51Look, no game planning means a lot.
13:53When you're not game planning defensively, you really can't evaluate, oh my God, they got run over.
14:00The first drive of the game, Miami goes down the field and scores on a 14-play, 93-yard drive,
14:09eating up seven minutes and six seconds.
14:11You can't view it in that context as if to say, oh my God, here we go again.
14:15No, our defensive players, all the new ones, weren't out there with the exception of Stiles and Shanahan in terms
14:22of players that they expect to be significant come opening day.
14:26But with that said, there were some players on the field like Stiles and Shanahan and Johnny Newton.
14:34And my biggest concern, and I've voiced this before about Stiles, as a young player in particular that isn't necessarily
14:44at full physical maturity yet.
14:47It's possible he isn't.
14:50You're going to have to, in a base 3-4, you're going to have to keep those double teams off
14:55of him.
14:56You're going to have to keep those big offensive linemen off of him in the run game.
15:00Look, the pass rushers that they've added are great.
15:04I'm excited about Owe and Shaysan and Dorrance Armstrong as a healthy player and what Luvu can do as a
15:11pass rusher, etc.
15:13But you're not going to be in favorable pass rush situations if you can't stop the run.
15:19Number one defensively for this team in 2026 is you've got to be a better run-stopping team.
15:26The Eagles are going to try to run the football in week one.
15:31Seattle, I mean, Dallas with Javante Williams is going to try to run the football.
15:35Seattle's going to try to run the football.
15:37These teams are going to try to run the football.
15:41Third and two is not a great pass rushing down.
15:44If you don't get to third down because you can't stop the run and you don't have enough third downs
15:50in the game,
15:51your pass rush results are not going to be great.
15:55See, sometimes the best offense is your first down offense because you can avoid third down by being great on
16:03first down.
16:04You've got to stop the run this year.
16:07And Styles, I'm excited about him.
16:09Don't get me wrong.
16:10Nothing about his performance.
16:11What did you say to me?
16:13You said something to me before the show.
16:15Somebody's breaking down Sonny Styles preseason and comparing it to his teammate, Arvel Reese.
16:21Yeah, it's just it's the folks on Twitter.
16:23It's NFL film Twitter.
16:25Once they get their hands on the all 22, they start breaking everything down like they know it all.
16:30For preseason, come on.
16:32Kevin, we're starved for football.
16:34How many plays?
16:35Was Sonny Styles out there for two drives, right?
16:37Like two drives, yeah.
16:38Yeah.
16:39Okay, so look.
16:40Look, I will say, though, that the number one thing with Styles as a rookie to watch, in my opinion,
16:47is can he hold up physically, strength-wise, against the run when offensive linemen get to him on that second
16:57level?
16:57Well, it's going to be a big, big job for Payne and Kinlaw and Settle and company to do a
17:05really good job up front.
17:07Edge setting obviously will be a big deal with whomever they have out there on early downs to set edges.
17:14You've got to stop the run or you cannot be, rarely can you be, a good pass-rushing team if
17:22you're a bad run-stopping team because you don't have the proper down and distances that work in your favor
17:29to be a good pass-rushing team.
17:33By the way, Quinn had something to say, right, about that opening drive for Miami.
17:38Here's what he said.
17:39And the first defensive drive may not have been the favorite moment of the hunt.
17:45It certainly was not, yes.
17:46So what are some of your immediate reactions to that drive specifically?
17:49Yeah, so early on, I thought just in the run game, it felt, you know, like they were, you know,
17:54moving yards after contact.
17:57Didn't love how, you know, the pass rush did, you know, affect Willis into that space.
18:01So although we started slowly, I thought we picked up, you know, steam after that.
18:05But as far as a first drive goes to, you know, take it all the way down the field because
18:10kicking off, I think they might have left, you know, the catch to go and then to have a long
18:14drive.
18:14It's like, damn.
18:16So I wanted to find out their resilience and fight.
18:18And so to see them come back and get, you know, stops after that, I was pleased.
18:22But I just thought we needed to start, you know, a little more aggressively, not from a play calling standpoint,
18:26just, you know, like how we play.
18:28Yeah, I mean, it helps when their starters exit after the first drive.
18:35That helps.
18:36No A-Chan and no Malik Willis after the first drive.
18:40And then things started to get better.
18:42Although actually on the second drive, they weren't that much better.
18:44Um, it just ended with, you know, a fourth down stop that kind of turned the tide a little bit,
18:50but against, you know, it was Washington's twos and some, you know, just call them the twos with maybe, you
18:57know, a couple of ones and styles and Chanel on the field against Miami's ones.
19:02And it was without game planning.
19:04It just wasn't pretty because they were getting manhandled up front.
19:08I don't even know if it was yards after contact.
19:10There seemed to be, uh, the yards after contact came after maybe three or four yards down the field.
19:17So that was just, you know, an observation.
19:20And I think I brought it up primarily because I wanted to say about Sonny Stiles, there's so much to
19:26be excited about, but he's a rookie and he's physically maybe not at the, you know, level that he'll, that'll
19:34be at in two or three years.
19:35And it's going to be really important that they do a good job up front.
19:40To keep the big trench guys off guys like Sonny Stiles in the run game.
19:47Um, next up on the list of things that I didn't like.
19:51Well, I mean, look, the kicking situation is something you can definitely evaluate in a preseason game.
19:56And, you know, Jake Moody doinked one in from 29 yards out.
20:03Not a good look.
20:05Not a good look.
20:06When you're doinking things in from 29 yards out and you missed a 24 yarder in the season finale last
20:13year.
20:13That is, that's like scary stuff.
20:16It's like, Jake, you don't have the leg that the other guy has, which means you better be perfect inside
20:2349, 49 and less.
20:27And he doinked one and missed, he missed one from 24 and then he doinked one in from 29.
20:34Stevens, by the way, if you didn't notice this, he made his extra point and he made his lone field
20:42goal.
20:42But the extra point, the first extra point and the only extra point he quick kicked, I don't know if
20:47you saw this, but he actually missed the first attempt.
20:50But the whistle blew the play dead before it started.
20:53He actually pushed it right.
20:55I mean, it could have been the whistle that sort of stopped the play and forced the push right.
21:01But that was the result of the post whistle non-play PAT.
21:07But yeah, I'd be concerned if I were Jake Moody in a game, you know, needing the upright to be
21:13kind to you to make one from 29 yards out.
21:19All right.
21:20A couple of other observations that don't necessarily fit good or bad.
21:25Number one is this, like Katron Allen.
21:28I mean, I liked Katron Allen a lot at Penn State.
21:31I think I'm going to like him in the pros.
21:32He got a lot of carries, 23 for, what was it, 23 for 85, I think, 23 for 85, 3
21:40.7 yards.
21:41He dropped a pass early.
21:44Robert Henry Jr., honestly, to me, looked like a more natural zone runner.
21:48But Katron Allen's bigger and he's got good vision too, don't get me wrong, and I like him as a
21:54runner.
21:54I will say this, that to me, when you get into these positions and you're talking about a guy that
22:01has perhaps real upside, draft status when you're picked in the sixth round shouldn't have anything to do with it.
22:09Like, that's not like, oh, you know, preferential treatment.
22:14I know they like Allen.
22:15I can't imagine that they don't like Henry Jr.
22:19I thought he was just okay.
22:21I saw a lot of people, you know, kind of saying, well, he bounced back and they had two outstanding
22:27performances at running back.
22:29I would say that they had one outstanding performance at running back in terms of just a player evaluation and
22:35one that was solid after his first few carries and after a drop pass early.
22:40Again, with no game planning.
22:42Makes a difference.
22:46This was Dan Quinn.
22:48This is what I wanted to play this for you guys.
22:51Dan Quinn talking about his two coordinators on their first nights ever calling plays.
22:59Here's what he had to say about David Blau and Durante Jones.
23:02I saw a game run for your coordinators.
23:04How do you feel like they did?
23:05You know what?
23:06I felt both guys felt really prepared going into it in terms of what it looks like.
23:11There'll be things to communicate differently, headsets, how does it go.
23:14But both of them really felt in control.
23:16I was listening a lot tonight just to see how the communication goes, call in on time and packages.
23:23So it actually can be difficult in the preseason because you're not game planning.
23:29And, okay, this is what I want to feature on this third down.
23:31This is what they like to do.
23:32So I thought both guys, I'd give them high remarks for starting us off.
23:35Good collaboration from the coaches, too.
23:38Yeah.
23:38I mean, that's so important.
23:39You know, it's actually probably in some ways harder in the preseason.
23:45Of course, it's harder in the preseason.
23:47You've got 90 players, although 26 weren't dressed.
23:50You've got many more players.
23:52You're trying to get everybody playing time.
23:55You don't have a game plan sheet necessarily that's pared down.
23:59Or maybe it is pared down or too pared.
24:02I don't know what the play sheet looks like.
24:03But his point was a good one, which is, you know, it can actually be difficult in preseason because you're
24:10not game planning.
24:12So it's not like, okay, it's third and five and here are the plays that we had for third and
24:17five against this opponent.
24:19Because you don't even know who the opponent's going to be by the time you get to the third drive
24:24of the first quarter or of the first half.
24:27But, you know, I didn't sense there was one time out that they had to call defensively and Durante Jones
24:34looked a little frustrated on the sideline, but got it together.
24:38And other than that, you know, I guess we're really not going to know until the opener.
24:45And the idea that, you know, you could get into some level of rhythm with your starting quarterback, the people
24:53you're going to be communicating with.
24:54I guess Sonny Stiles was the player that Durante Jones was communicating with the other night, but it'll likely be
25:00Frankie Louvoo in game number one.
25:02I don't know.
25:03I'd still like to see us, the starters out there for a series or two Saturday against Detroit.
25:10Wait, yeah, I had one other sort of observation.
25:15Oh, my other observation has to do with Miami.
25:19You know, Malik Willis is an interesting deal because Malik Willis this time last year essentially was clinging to life
25:31in terms of being on an NFL roster as a quarterback.
25:35Uh, it certainly didn't look like he had any chance to be an NFL quarterback in Tennessee.
25:42And then when he got traded to Green Bay, um, and you got that first opportunity in 2024 when he
25:51came in for some games, when Jordan Love was banged, uh, banged up and he played pretty well.
25:56You know, he looked the part, but again, it was a lot of running along with limited passing.
26:03They really dialed back the game plan.
26:05And then when he got that opportunity late in the season last year with Jordan Love out against Chicago in
26:12that Saturday night game, remember right around the holidays?
26:15That was, um, uh, was that a streaming game?
26:19I forget.
26:19Uh, but he was so outstanding in that game coming in for love.
26:25And then, uh, his season finale was awesome.
26:29I mean, it was a kind of a, uh, uh, it was a loss to Baltimore, but I think he
26:34threw for like 288 rush for 60.
26:37And all of a sudden he's the number one free agent quarterback in the off season.
26:43Here's what I think if you've been watching Malik Willis in Green Bay, and now with Jeff Halfley, who comes
26:51from Green Bay defensive side of the ball with, by the way, Bobby Slowik.
26:56So the S a similar scheme in Miami that he was with under, uh, Lafleur in Green Bay.
27:03What you notice about Malik Willis is number one, he's really calm.
27:10He's really poised.
27:12You saw that last year in that pressure game against Chicago, you know, at Soldier Field, the internationally televised Saturday
27:20night game.
27:21Uh, he was really, really poised, calm, doesn't seem to get rattled very easily.
27:28And then the other thing, and maybe this is just me, but going back to the end of last year
27:35and then looking at the other night, he's accurate.
27:39He's naturally accurate as a passer.
27:42And I don't think anybody would have said that, um, you know, after the opportunities he got in Tennessee.
27:50But then again, we didn't really pay attention to those opportunities and they weren't, it wasn't a good football team.
27:57He was on a good football team last year.
27:59He's not going to be on a good football team this year, but he's an accurate thrower and he is
28:06accurate from the pocket and on the move.
28:10I mean, can never count these quarterbacks out, man, never.
28:16I mean, they develop at their own pace and many times it takes a few years minimum.
28:23And in some cases it takes several years, but I think he actually looks like a guy that if you
28:31run the ball, well, you can function with more than function with.
28:37Yeah.
28:39I'd like to, I'd love to know what any of the true, like quarterback guru pundits out there think of
28:47Malik Willis.
28:48I view him as an accurate thrower of the football.
28:52Very accurate.
28:53I could be wrong.
28:55Um, but what he did in, uh, Green Bay last year when he got the opportunity and just in limited
29:00action the other night, he just throws a good ball.
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