Commanders Position Profile: Wide Receiver

Profiling the key traits the Commanders want in a wide receiver

This week I’ve been building position profiles for the Commanders that show some of the key traits the Commanders look for at certain positions. I’ve already broken down cornerback and defensive end, so today I’m switching to the other side of the ball and looking at wide receivers. The Commanders receiver group is interesting because they have a stud in Terry McLaurin that had over 1000 receiving yards and a career-high 13 touchdowns, but the next best wide receiver had less than half of that production. Olamide Zaccheaus was the second leading receiver with 506 receiving yards. Noah Brown was on track for a solid season despite being signed during the opening week of the season, but his season was cut short due to injury. Dyami Brown came on strong late in the year and particularly in the playoffs, but offered little for the majority of the year.

So the Commanders had a bunch of solid role players, but lacked a real consistent threat to pair with McLaurin and help open up more of the offense. With that in mind, I’m focusing on traits the Commanders will be looking for from an outside receiver, rather than a slot receiver, though obviously plenty of traits will overlap between those two spots. Having the flexibility to move around and work out of the slot would be an added bonus, but in Kingsbury’s offense that likes to use tempo and get lined up quickly, the outside receivers tend to stay outside and on their own sides of the field. So that’s the profile of player I’m looking at here.

I think the first thing the Commanders will be looking for is more speed and explosiveness on the outside. McLaurin was the only receiver that gave the Commanders a consistent deep threat. Kingsbury is known for a vertical passing attack but had to adjust because he didn’t have the personnel. One of Jayden Daniels’ biggest strengths is his deep ball, but he was limited in how frequently he could make use of that talent because only McLaurin was winning deep consistently. So I think the Commanders will be looking for more of a vertical threat, which requires a few key attributes.

The first of those key attributes is obviously speed. There’s no better way to win deep than to have a fast receiver run by a corner. This play is a great example of Dyami Brown showing the type of speed the Commanders would love to see on a regular basis opposite McLaurin. At the snap of the ball, Brown immediately bursts straight up the field, eating up the cushion the cornerback was trying to gain. With Brown so quickly closing the gap, the corner feels threatened vertically and responds by adjusting inside to get closer to Brown.

Brown feels that move coming and uses it against the corner. He suddenly bursts outside, running right around where the corner came from. The corner can’t change his direction quickly enough and Brown zooms past him down the sideline. Daniels sees Brown get level with the corner and knows he’ll win, so pulls the trigger on a beautiful deep ball that hits Brown in stride for a 41-yard touchdown.

Speed kills in the NFL and the Commanders need more of it on both sides of the ball, but there’s more that goes into being a good deep threat than just pure speed. An overlooked part of being a deep threat is ball tracking. It’s not easy to be running away from the quarterback and have to look over your shoulder, locate the ball in the air and then adjust your path and speed to match the trajectory of the throw. Terry McLaurin is excellent at this and makes it look far easier than it actually is.

Here is a great example of deep ball tracking from McLaurin. He runs a vertical route working against Eagles rookie corner Quinyon Mitchell. McLaurin initially works his route inside to try and create space for Daniels’ throw on the outside. He starts the play lined up outside the numbers but angles his path inside towards the numbers at the snap. Once he gets to the numbers, he straightens up slightly, noticing that Mitchell adjusts his own path to the inside, likely anticipating an in-breaking route.

This creates a ton of space outside the numbers for McLaurin and Daniels to work with. Daniels gets pressured and decides incredibly early to take the shot, before McLaurin has even come close to getting level with Mitchell. He can only make that decision because he fully trusts McLaurin’s ability to track the deep ball and make him right. The ball from Daniels is a good one, placed outside towards the sideline and far enough to be near the corner of the end zone. The combination of McLaurin’s early work on his route and Daniels’ touch on his deep ball make this play possible, but McLaurin’s tracking ability is what completes it.

After getting past Mitchell, McLaurin sets an initial path, widening slightly towards the sideline. He then turns his head to locate the ball and sees that Daniels has already put the ball out there. McLaurin adjusts his path and his speed to match the trajectory of the ball and run underneath it perfectly. It ends up dropping over his shoulder and he secures the catch for a touchdown, making the tracking look easy, but many other receivers would have failed to locate that ball early enough to adjust to it.

So ball tracking is a key component of being able to win down the field, but so too is body control. Sometimes passes aren’t perfectly thrown and require a receiver to adjust to the ball in the air. Sometimes the coverage is tight and the quarterback has to position the throw in a specific spot to avoid the coverage, forcing the receiver to adjust their body to that pass. Sometimes windows are just tight and the body control is needed to secure a pass near the sideline and keep feet in bounds.