Can Nick Allegretti improve Commanders targeting in run game?

Allegretti is replacing Biadasz at C, can he be an upgrade in the mental side of the position?

One of the more puzzling moves that the Commanders made this offseason was cutting starting center Tyler Biadasz and not adding an obvious replacement. Biadasz was one of the first free agents that the Adam Peters and Dan Quinn regime brought in and he had an excellent first season with the team back in 2024. Like most players on the team in 2025, he had a bit of a down year but I personally didn’t feel he played anywhere near bad enough to be cut. The Commanders did pursue Tyler Linderbaum in free agency, who would have been an upgrade, but the Raiders blew everyone out of the water with their offer to Linderbaum, which the Commanders were probably wise not to match.

The Commanders drafted center Matt Gulbin in the sixth round, and while it’s not unheard of for a sixth round offensive lineman to come in and start right away, it does seem unlikely. So that leaves the Commanders with Nick Allegretti as their likely starter at the center position. Allegretti, like Biadasz, was signed by Quinn and Peters in 2024 initially to be a starter at left guard. He played all of 2024 there but was replaced in 2025 and became a back up for most of the year.

On the face of it, it seems like a very odd decision. The story we’re told from reporters and those around the team is that the Commanders feel comfortable with Allegretti as their center. Their belief is that while he might not necessarily have the same physical attributes that Biadasz has, he could make up for that with the mental side of the game. Center is a unique position because it’s one of the more cerebral positions on the field outside of quarterback. They have to set targeting in the run game to ensure each blocker is going to the correct defenders, while also helping the quarterback set the pass protections to pick up blitzes and give the quarterback time to throw.

We hear the teams “setting the protection” and “targeting” a lot with the center position, but what does it actually mean and what does it look like when it goes wrong? Well, here’s an example of a run play last year with Biadasz at center where it was poorly targeted.

Before we even get to the snap of the ball here, it looks like a bad situation to be running into. The Cowboys have a 3-4 front with all three interior offensive lineman covered up, meaning each interior lineman has a defensive tackle in one of their immediate gaps. That on it’s own makes it very difficult to generate double teams up front in the run game, but it is possible to work around that.

However, the Cowboys have multiple defenders over the left side of the line here. With the nose tackle over Biadasz at center, the Cowboys also have another defensive tackle on the outside shoulder of the left guard, an outside linebacker on the outside shoulder of the left tackle, and they walk down a safety on the edge even further outside of that. There’s also a linebacker about five or six yards off the ball lined up over that left side of the line. That left side of the line is completely overloaded, meaning even if every lineman picks up their most immediate block perfectly, the defense will still have at least one unblocked defender on that side. That on it’s own should be a signal to change the play.

But beyond that, the Cowboys are setting up for an obvious stunt. They liked to stunt their front a lot last season, so the Commanders should have been prepared for that going in, but their front with the safety walked down to the edge is a big indicator that a stunt is coming. However, the Commanders don’t appear to make any sort of adjustment to account for that. The result is a defensive tackle stunts inside and attacks a big gap between the left guard and center, blowing up the run before it really began.

Now, what must be said is that on the outside, we don’t know how much exactly this is on the center. It could be that the staff didn’t prepare the team for stunts and fronts like that. It could be that they expected the quarterback to notice it was a bad front to run into and he should have been the one responsible for changing the play. There are a number of ways in which this isn’t on the center necessarily, but it’s an example of what happens when targeting a run goes wrong. The Commanders did have a few runs where the targeting looked off this season, which given the Commanders decision to cut Biadasz, suggests they felt he was doing a poor job there.

However, on the outside we don’t know exactly what the situation was. Biadasz is someone that the team praised for his football IQ and ability to control the line well. Nobody questioned that after the 2024 season, when Biadasz looked like one of the best free agent signings that the Commanders had made in decades. Biadasz was immediately highly sought after as soon as he became available, signing a significant contract with the Chargers, where new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel has already been heavily praising him.

But if the reason the Commanders have cut Biadasz truly is about targeting and setting protections, then how good is Allegretti in those areas? Again, it’s tough to say for certain from the outside looking in. It’s especially tough with Allegretti because he’s mostly played guard during his time in Washington. This past season, we only really saw him play center for a game and a half at the end of the year. Biadasz got hurt against the Cowboys in the penultimate game of the year and Allegretti replaced him at center. He kept that spot and started at center in the final game of the year against the Eagles, but mostly played against back ups in that game.

So we have a very limited sample size on Allegretti playing center, which makes it tough to evaluate and extrapolate anything significant from it. But the Commanders did have one of their best runs of the entire season with Allegretti at center.