Commanders run game dominant vs Titans

Breaking down the dominant performance from the Commanders run game against the Titans

The Washington Commanders dominated the Tennessee Titans with an outstanding rushing attack on Sunday. Going into the game, the Titans had the second-ranked defense in terms of yards allowed per game, with an average of 276.4. Only the Eagles were better with an average of 274.6 yards allowed per game. A good part of that success was their ninth-ranked run defense. Despite that, the Commanders ran for a total of 267 yards and three touchdowns at nearly six yards per carry.

It was an incredible performance from the Commanders, so how did they manage to have so much success against an objectively good rushing defense? Let’s jump into it.

The first run of the day was Brian Robinson’s 40-yard touchdown run. It was a play that had multiple insights into what was to come. The first was that Washington got back to the types of run schemes that had been so successful for them earlier in the season. The play came on their GT Counter Read scheme, which has consistently been one of their staple runs this season but they only ran it once against the Cowboys last week. Another big insight gained from this run is how the Titans defended it. They called a stunt up front which just happened to perfectly play into the scheme.

Here is the touchdown run then. From the clip you can see the scheme from the Commanders. On the GT Counter Read scheme, the Commanders pull their left tackle and left guard to the right side of the line, with the guard kicking out the edge defender and the tackle wrapping around for a linebacker. They add a read-option element into this, with the unblocked defensive end on the back side being read by quarterback Jayden Daniels. If the end crashes inside on the run, Daniels can pull the ball and run with a tight end arc blocking out in front for him. If the end holds his position, as he does here, then Daniels hands the ball off and the Commanders don’t have to block one of the defensive lineman.

I talked about the Titans running a stunt that played perfectly into the blocking scheme. You can see that here. Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, one of the top defensive lineman in the NFL, lines up in the B gap between right guard Sam Cosmi and right tackle Cornelius Lucas. At the snap, he stunts inside, crossing the face of Cosmi to try and attack the A gap inside while a linebacker replaces him in the B gap. Lucas and Cosmi deserve plenty of credit here because Lucas has only played left tackle this season and Dan Quinn spoke glowingly after the game about how he noticed Lucas taking time after practice this week to get Cosmi to do some extra work on combination blocks to build up a rapport between them. You can see that pay off here as Cosmi takes on Simmons off the stunt and Lucas immediately picks up the linebacker.

With the stunt picked up, the Titans are in a terrible position to fit the rest of the run. Tight end John Bates is able to work down the line and reach the linebacker trying to scrape to the edge. Nick Allegretti pulls from his left guard spot and kicks out the edge defender while left tackle Brandon Coleman follows him and wraps around to the second level. Typically Coleman would be looking for a linebacker, but both linebackers were already sealed inside, so instead he takes on the safety looking to fill from deep. This creates a huge lane for Robinson to run into. From there, it’s just a question of if Robinson can outrun the back side safety, who takes a poor angle. Robinson goes completely untouched as he sprints to the end zone for a 40-yard touchdown.

That GT Counter Read scheme has been one of Washington’s best run schemes all year, so it was odd to see them only run it once against the Cowboys. They clearly had the intent to correct that mistake, with it being the first run they called in this game. They went back to it a few times too, with good success on just about every time it was called.

Here we see another GT Counter scheme later on in the game, this time with Chris Rodriguez running it instead of Brian Robinson. The Titans attempt another run blitz, but a slightly different one this time. This one is a lot tougher to pick up because they blitz a linebacker from the back side of the run. With both the left guard and left tackle pulling to the right side, the only lineman that is available to cut off that linebacker from running straight through into the backfield is center Tyler Biadasz. However, Biadasz is covered up with a nose tackle on his left shoulder.

So not only does Biadasz have to reach across multiple gaps to try and cut off the blitzing linebacker, but he also has to avoid getting caught up in the nose tackle AND he needs Sam Cosmi to slide across multiple gaps from right guard to block the nose tackle. Despite the degree of difficulty for both Biadasz and Cosmi, both lineman pull off their blocks well and even make them look easy. Biadasz cuts off the linebacker with a little bit of help from Coleman as Coleman pulls, preventing the linebacker from bursting through and blowing up the run before it could get going. Meanwhile Cosmi cuts off the nose tackle and seals him on the back side.

This leaves the Titans in a bad spot. That blitz needed to work because once it’s picked up, the Commanders suddenly have a lot of bodies to the front side of this run while the Titans suddenly don’t have many. They get one less body too because the remaining linebacker hesitates and works to the back side thinking that Jayden Daniels is keeping the ball on a read-option. That makes it easy for Bates to work across and seal him off on the back side of the play. At right tackle, Cornelius Lucas does a nice job adjusting to the defensive tackle trying to attack his outside shoulder. Instead of working hard to seal him inside, Lucas lets the defender work outside and kicks him out instead, creating the lane inside.

The play ends up blocked so well that as Coleman wraps around, he has nobody left to block. Rodriguez bursts past him and into the open field. He shows off his power as he breaks through an arm tackle and falls forward to maximize the gain on the play, picking up 17 yards.

While that GT Counter scheme was working for the Commanders, they didn’t rely purely on that one scheme alone. What made them so effective early in the season was the diversity of run schemes. They had so much installed that they could effectively pull any lineman, tight end, running back or even wide receiver in any direction on any given play, making it very tough for the defensive lineman to know who exactly was going to block them. The Commanders got away from this a little bit in recent weeks, but against the Titans they got back on track.