Commanders promote Darnell Stapleton to offensive line coach

Breaking down what Stapleton's promotion to OL coach could mean for the Commanders run game

The Washington Commanders are promoting Darnell Stapleton to be their new offensive line coach. Stapleton joined the Commanders staff in 2024 as the assistant offensive line coach behind Bobby Johnson, but Johnson was let go alongside Kliff Kingsbury earlier this offseason, making the offensive line coach position available. I thought the Commanders might go and try to find someone more experienced, perhaps with some run game coordinator background to assist a young offensive coordinator in David Blough, but instead they’ve decided to promote from within again.

It’s another bold and risky move from Dan Quinn. Offensive coordinator and offensive line coach are the two most important coaches for the offensive side of the ball. Quinn is entering a critical third year where he’ll likely need to be successful to keep his job. It’s somewhat surprising then that he’d put his job in the hands of two coaches that have never coached in their respective new positions before, at least not at the NFL level. Stapleton is more experienced than Blough, having coached a lot in college. He was the offensive line coach at Florida before joining the Commanders in 2024

It’s not all risk though, there are benefits to promoting Stapleton. He has a rapport with the current set of offensive lineman already, who are largely going to remain the same this offseason. He also supposedly has a good relationship with David Blough, with the Commanders seemingly briefing the media that the pair share an aligned vision for the offense and that Stapleton was “heavily involved in pass protection and helped with game planning” over the past two seasons. Just about every beat reporter had that phrasing in their reports of the news breaking.

The fact they mention pass protection and game planning, but not the run game is of note to me. At Florida, Stapleton coached an almost exclusively zone-based run scheme. Over the past two years, the Commanders have used plenty zone scheme runs but lean more on gap scheme runs. When I wrote last week about lessons David Blough can learn from Ben Johnson first year in Chicago with a young quarterback in Caleb Williams, one of the things that stood out was how Johnson streamlined his run game and focused more on zone scheme runs as a foundation, as opposed to the diverse run scheme he had in Detroit previously.

So I think Blough could potentially be lining up to follow that blueprint and Stapleton makes sense for that with his background being coaching the zone scheme. I actually forgot that I got hold of a coaching clinic from Stapleton on the zone scheme from his time at Florida when the Commanders hired him two years ago. If you’d like a post on that coaching clinic, let me know and I’ll be happy to write up some notes.

A foundation of zone running would be a smart way to go about building out Blough’s first attempt at an NFL offense. The Commanders have an incredibly athletic offensive line that should make zone running a strength. Laremy Tunsil is as athletic as left tackles can be, same can be said for Josh Conerly Jr. Sam Cosmi was an incredibly athletic tackle prospect coming out of the draft and is now one of the most athletic guards in the NFL. Tyler Biadasz is a very athletic center. At left guard, Chris Paul is set to become a free agent, but he’s athletic for a man of his size. If he leaves, his replacement would likely be Brandon Coleman, who is also very athletic.

It’s not just the offensive line though. Tight end John Bates is an ideal traditional Y tight end for a zone blocking scheme. Ben Sinnott is a good move blocker as a second tight end or fullback. Running backs Chris Rodriguez and Jacory Croskey-Merritt both have excellent feel for zone running too. So it’s a system that suits the personnel. We’ve seen from the Commanders this season when they do use zone runs, especially from pistol or under center, they’ve been pretty effective with it.

I’m going to split these clips into two sections, based on that Stapleton coaching clinic. Stapleton likes to draw a line down the middle of the center and split zone blocks into front side and back side blocks. So I’ll do the same when looking at these clips to show how well zone running fits the Commanders personnel.

This was probably one of the best blocked plays we saw from the Commanders offense all season. The Commanders work out of their jumbo package here against the Dolphins with Brandon Coleman in as the sixth offensive lineman. He aligns outside right tackle Josh Conerly and is joined by tight end John Bates on the edge, with Colson Yankoff lining up in the backfield as a fullback. The Commanders call a wide zone run scheme to the right and block it exceptionally well. There’s a lot of good blocks here, so let’s work from the inside out to highlight them.

Center Tyler Biadasz makes the first key block that sets this thing in motion. He reaches across the face of the nose tackle lined up in the A gap between Biadasz and Cosmi at right guard. By reaching across his face, Biadasz is able to flip his hips and pin the defender inside, sealing him off on the back side of the run. By executing that so quickly, he also frees up Cosmi to climb up to the second level and block a linebacker. Cosmi does exactly that, sealing the Mike (middle) linebacker inside.

Right tackle Josh Conerly holds his own against the defensive end one-on-one, but the real work happens outside of him. Coleman works up to the second level and takes on a linebacker, washing him outside and out of the play. Bates takes on the linebacker on the edge and does a decent job keeping him moving outside. Yankoff inserts between the two of them, forcing the cornerback in the box to join the run fit.

It’s a very well blocked play and Rodriguez runs his track well. He follows the path to the edge, making his cut between Conerly and Coleman to work up to the second level almost untouched. Unfortunately, the cornerback reads what’s happening and before Yankoff can get to him, he works back inside to make the tackle, but not before Rodriguez is able to pick up 12 yards.

It was a great example of how athletic the Commanders offensive line is. Biadasz was athletic enough to reach the nose tackle. Cosmi was athletic enough to climb and reach the Mike linebacker. Conerly held his own one-on-one while Coleman was able to climb and reach a block in space too. There were plenty more examples of that athleticism on the front side of zone runs this year. Perhaps the best came against the Cowboys in Week 17.

This was Croskey-Merritt’s 72-yard touchdown run against the Cowboys. The Commanders run a simple zone scheme to their right. The Cowboys defensive front dictates how the offensive lineman block on a wide zone scheme. The Cowboys have a defensive tackle in the B gap between Conerly and back up right guard Andrew Wylie. That typically would mean that Conerly has to help Wylie secure that block before then climbing up to the linebacker on the second level. However, at the snap, the Cowboys stunt their front, with both defensive tackles stunting towards the left side of the line. This takes the defensive tackle out of the B gap, making him no longer a threat to Conerly.

That enables Conerly to simply focus on climbing up to the linebacker on the second level. With his athleticism, he does that smoothly. He climbs up and even manages to position himself with inside leverage to help him push the linebacker outside, kicking him out and creating the lane for the running back inside. Conerly gets a strong block and sustains it, enabling the back to cut inside of him without being touched, but Conerly’s block wasn’t the only important one here.

Back up center Nick Allegretti did a great job climbing up from center to block the other linebacker, while receiver Treylon Burks showed great effort to work up to the deep safety and block him. At the line of scrimmage, Wylie did well to redirect with the stunt and seal off the defensive tackle long enough for Croskey-Merritt to run past him. Similarly, tight end John Bates did just enough on the defensive end to kick him out and create the path inside, which not many tight ends can do one-on-one against a bigger defensive end.

On a huge run like this, all of those blocks need to come together perfectly for it to hit as effectively as it did, so credit is deserved across the board. It was particularly impressive from Conerly. The ability to climb up to the second level shouldn’t be overlooked. He makes it look easy but it’s tough for bigger lineman to do. And it’s one thing to be able to get up to the second level, it’s another to actually engage and sustain a block against a more agile defender in space once you get there. Conerly looked at ease doing all of that, which is very impressive.

From a running back perspective, we can obviously see Croskey-Merritt’s explosiveness here. He shot through the hole like he’d been fired out of a cannon and nobody touched him as he burst down the sideline for a huge 72-yard touchdown run. But there were some messy blocks at the line of scrimmage due to the stunt. He did well not to get distracted by that and knocked off his path. He stuck to his path and was rewarded with a huge lane and took full advantage of that.

Being able to handle those stunts is a critical part of zone running. One of the most common ways defenses try to counter zone runs is by stunting their front. Zone run schemes are predictable from a defensive perspective. The unknown is which direction it’s going, but as soon as that is declared at the snap, the defense knows which lineman is going to block which player based on the front they line up in. So defenses try to disrupt that by stunting lineman. The Commanders showed there they could handle those stunts, but it wasn’t the only time we saw them do that.