Can Treylon Burks Win Commanders WR2 Battle?

Breaking down how Burks fits Blough's offense to see if he could win a starting role

As the Washington Commanders wrap up their second week of OTA practices, much of the buzz around the local media and fan base is about wide receiver Treylon Burks. The Commanders have their clear number one receiver in Terry McLaurin and they also have a lot of hope in rookie Antonio Williams, but there’s a big opportunity for someone to claim the wide receiver two role opposite McLaurin this offseason. Many, myself included, assumed that would be Brandon Aiyuk whenever the 49ers eventually released him, but as that situation continues to drag on, guys on the roster are getting chances to stand out in practice.

Through the first two weeks of OTAs, it appears as though Treylon Burks is the receiver standing out the most. Most local beat reporters have stated that Burks is getting most of the reps opposite McLaurin and when you see videos from practice, it’s typically Burks that comes up second in the receiver running order after McLaurin. As a former first round pick, Burks is obviously a talented receiver. The issues for him in Tennessee mostly revolved around struggling to stay healthy. So if he can stay healthy, could he earn that second spot in the Commanders wide receiver rankings?

To judge that, we first need to see what new offensive coordinator David Blough is likely looking for from a receiver like Burks. Burks is listed at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds and is probably best suited to playing an outside receiver role in this offense. With McLaurin locking down the X receiver role, that leaves the Z receiver spot open. So what does Blough want from a Z receiver? Only he knows the actual answer to that question, but we do know that his offense is likely to be heavily influenced from his time in Detroit under Ben Johnson. So looking back at that 2023 Lions offense, how did they use the Z receiver?

One of the themes of the Lions offense in 2023 was how they leaned on an interior trio of running back Jahmyr Gibbs, tight end Sam LaPorta and slot receiver Amon-Ra St.Brown. Those three carried a lot of the load working underneath and over the middle of the field. The Z receiver in that offense became a secondary option after those guys, but often you’d see the Lions use those three underneath as bait to open up a deeper crossing route for the Z receiver.

On this play, the Lions work out of an empty set with the running back split out wide to the right, but focus more on the other receivers. They have LaPorta and St.Brown both running pivot routes underneath. Those two draw so much attention on things like choice routes and pivot routes that defenses tended to key on them. So here, the Lions have both of them run pivot routes while they run the Z receiver on a basic cross in behind them. You can see how the underneath defenders are drawn to LaPorta and St.Brown, leaving the middle of the field wide open behind them. The Z receiver breaks into that gap and the quarterback finds him over the middle. The receiver then turns upfield and picks up some nice yards after the catch too.

So for Burks, the key traits here are the toughness and willingness to go over the middle and potentially make contested catches against safeties driving down on him. You can see that the space is schemed open for the Z receiver here, so it’s just a case of a receiver willing to be physical and make a contested grab over the middle against a safety. Burks showed last year he was willing to do that.

Against the Eagles last season, we see Burks run a deep over route on third and four as part of what appears to be a drive concept. This isn’t exactly the same play as we saw from the Lions in 2023 previously, but the idea is similar. On drive concepts, the offense has a shallow cross paired with a basic cross at 10-12 yards, designed to create a high-low read for the quarterback. Burks doesn’t quite run a basic cross, he rounds out the route a lot more like a deep over rather than cutting sharply at a designated spot, but it still plays out quite similar to a drive concept. As Mariota drops back to pass, he spots the underneath linebacker attaching to the shallow cross, so he throws over the top of that defender to Burks on the deep over.

Burks does a nice job going up and making a strong hands catch away from his body with two defenders closing in on him from different angles. He shows no fear of contact and does take on some contact while in the air. Despite that, he manages to secure the pass and complete the catch, which should have resulted in a nice third down conversion. Unfortunately, the refs called a nonsense holding penalty on left tackle Brandon Coleman, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Burks showed the willingness and toughness to go over the middle and make a good contested catch.

Another theme for how the Lions used their Z receiver was play-action passes. In 2023, the Lions often used multiple tight end sets, leaving just one or two receivers on the field a lot of the time. Those receivers would get a lot of catches down the field and over the middle on play-action passes.

On this play, we see the Lions running a play-action fake with a dagger concept. They fake a counter run, pulling a guard to help sell the fake and get the linebackers to bite up on it. The two receivers both line up to the left of the formation, with the inside receiver running a vertical clear out route to create space behind him for the outside receiver to run a deep dig. The concept works nicely, with the underneath defenders biting up on the run and the deep defenders having to run deeper with the vertical route. That opens up a nice gap in the middle for the dig route. Just like before, that receiver doesn’t have to run a particularly skillful route as he’s being scheme’d open, but he has to show a willingness to run over the middle of the field and then the ability to be physical after the catch.

Burks showed he was capable of doing that type of job too.