Breaking down the Commanders run schemes

The preseason opener provided a promising first look at how the Commanders run game could work this season

The Washington Commanders preseason opener against the Jets provided us with a first look at what the Kliff Kingsbury offense might look like this season. Obviously, the Commanders aren’t going to show their whole offense in preseason and they weren’t game planning specific schemes and concepts for the Jets defense, but they also aren’t going to be running plays that they haven’t been installing in camp with the intent to use in the regular season. 

One of the things that stood out to me when watching the All-22 footage of the game was the amount of zone run schemes and how nicely layered together they were. Now again, it’s only preseason and they aren’t showing their whole offense, but Kingsbury’s offense in Arizona majored in gap scheme concepts and offensive line coach Bobby Johnson has a history with gap scheme runs too. So I was anticipating more gap scheme runs from this team. I do still expect to see things like the GT Counter package the Kingbury used with the Cardinals once we get to the regular season, but perhaps we will also see plenty of zone scheme runs too. 

This is perhaps the influence of having a coach like Anthony Lynn on staff. Lynn comes from a two-year spell on the 49ers staff under Kyle Shanahan and is now the Commanders run game coordinator and running backs coach. You could see that Shanahan influence from this preseason game against the Jets, even without any real game planning being done in the preseason. 

Let’s start with the first run of the game. Here we see the Commanders in the shotgun with running back Brian Robinson aligned to the left of quarterback Jayden Daniels. Tight end John Bates lines up to the right of the formation but a step back from the line of scrimmage while receiver Dyami Brown is also tight to the right of the formation. 

The Commanders run a wide zone run scheme, with the offensive line all stepping in unison to the right and executing the typical zone scheme techniques. They look to generate double teams up front with right guard Sam Cosmi and center Tyler Biadasz, both are very athletic and effective zone blockers, working to the three technique defensive tackle while left guard Nick Allegretti and left tackle Trent Scott look to secure the defensive tackle on the back side.  Bates executes what Shanahan would call a sift, where he sifts back across the offensive line to block the defensive end on the back side of the run. Brown is also involved as he climbs up to the safety to try and block him. 

The interior trio make this play work well. Cosmi initially secures the defensive tackle on his outside shoulder before Biadasz works across and helps kick the defender outside to ensure Cosmi wins that block. Biadasz then climbs up to the second level and picks up the Mike (middle) linebacker. At left guard, Allegretti gets in front of the back side defensive tackle and holds him up long enough to allow Scott to get to the block. Scott struggles to gain control of the block fully, so Allegretti stays attached to help secure it. This all creates a nice lane inside for Robinson to run into on his way to a solid gain. 

Now that run isolated on its own is nothing that noteworthy, it’s just a pretty simple zone run scheme with a sift block from the tight end. But it was part of a theme for the day. The Commanders layered in lots of similar zone scheme runs with slight adjustments on each one throughout the game. 

Here is the Commanders third run of the game. It’s another zone scheme run but there’s some significant changes. For starters, Daniels is in the pistol, which isn’t quite under center but also not as deep as being in the shotgun. That allows Robinson to line up in a normal running back position behind him, which helps disguise which way the ball might be run. The Commanders are also in 12 personnel, with one running back and two tight ends. John Bates is attached to the line of scrimmage to the right while Cole Turner lines up as more of a fullback in the backfield to the right of Daniels. 

Another change is that this time, the Commanders are running to the weak side of the formation, away from the alignment of the tight end, instead of to the strong side like we saw on the first play. They also have a slight adjustment in the blocking techniques. Rather than every offensive lineman taking a step to their left at the snaps, the Commanders have a built in adjustment for this specific front from the defense. 

The nose tackle from the Jets is lined up in the A gap between Biadasz at center and Allegretti at left guard, shaded slightly more towards the right shoulder of Allegretti. In a normal zone run, that would be a tough block for a slightly undersized center to make on his own. So instead of just asking Biadasz to make a tough block and live with it, the Commanders use what’s known as a “wipe” adjustment. Allegretti blocks down on the nose tackle, using his leverage to pin the defender inside and allowing Biadasz to use his athletic ability to pull around Allegretti to the left side of the line. Effectively, the pair swap their blocking assignments to give both of them a better look to suit their respective skill sets. 

The blocks on the left side of the line go pretty well with some movement generated and a cut back lane created for Robinson. The issue for this play comes from the right side. Cosmi does well to climb from his right guard spot but then misses his cut block at the second level while Chris Paul at right tackle gets to the play side of the back side defensive tackle but doesn’t secure the block. Had he been able to secure that block, there could have been quite a nice lane for Robinson as both tight ends did a good job on their respective blocks on the back side of the run. 

Having the built-in wipe adjustment with Allegretti and Biadasz against this type of front suggests the Commanders will be looking to run plenty of zone scheme and have thought in detail about the types of looks they will get and could struggle with. Providing built-in answers like that adjustment shows a level of detail in the run game that wasn’t necessarily there for Kingsbury in Arizona, and a level of detail that a team wouldn’t bother to invest time in teaching if it wasn’t planning to lean on the zone scheme in the regular season. 

The Commanders fifth run of the game had a familiar look to it, but it was again slightly different.