Commanders Training Camp Round Up: 1st Padded Practice

Rounding up and breaking down some clips from the first padded practice of Commanders training camp

The Commanders held their first padded practice of training camp on Monday. I rounded up a few clips posted online by fans and was ready to do a round-up post yesterday, but the one clip of the offensive line vs defensive line one-on-one drills took over and felt like it deserved it’s own post. So today, I’m circling back to the other clips I found online on Monday to break down a few plays from that first padded practice.

The first clip I want to break down in detail was posted a few times on Monday, but the best angle I could find came from @BleedinBnG on twitter. He posted a few different angles of it but this clip in particular gave the best angle.

There’s so much to learn about the Commanders defense from this one play alone. The defense has their 3-4 base personnel on the field, but they don’t play the snap like a normal 3-4 defense. They have three big interior defensive lineman with Javon Kinlaw, Tim Settle and Charles Omenihu all on the field. They then have Odafe Oweh on the edge opposite right tackle Josh Conerly Jr. K’Lavon Chaisson would normally be the other edge rusher in this 3-4 front and while he is on the field, he doesn’t line up on the edge.

Instead, the Commanders show more of a 4-3 look than a 3-4 look. Chaisson steps off the line of scrimmage and lines up more like an off-ball linebacker in a 4-3. With Chaisson not on the edge, Kinlaw shifts across to line up just outside left tackle Laremy Tunsil and become the new edge rusher. Kinlaw is an outstanding athlete for his size so he’s capable of playing this heavy end role and it gives the left tackle something completely different to consider. Most left tackles are facing edge rushers that weigh between 240-260 pounds. Kinlaw is listed at 319 and has far more strength than any normal edge rusher can offer.

To make that look work though, Chaisson has to hold up in coverage. The Commanders appear to be in some form of red zone Cover-2 or perhaps a form of quarters here, so Chaisson, along with linebackers Frankie Luvu and Leo Chenal are responsible for the three interior underneath zones. All three of them do exceptionally well here. Starting with Chaisson, he drops into coverage and gets his eyes on the quarterback. He can feel star receiver Terry McLaurin spotting up next to him and can also see Jayden Daniels looking that way. Chaisson shuffles outside slightly to take that option away and force Daniels onto another read.

Inside of Chaisson, Luvu is responsible for the underneath middle of the field, which is where Daniels’ eyes go next. Receiver Treylon Burks runs a crossing route after a short pre-snap motion and Luvu is quick to locate it and disrupt it. With the ball being snapped inside the five yard line and Luvu holding his position on the goal line, he knows he can be as physical as he wants to be. As soon as Burks comes near him, Luvu pops him, completely taking him out of the equation. For good measure, Chaisson also follows Daniels’ eyes inside and shuffles inside to help Luvu with the coverage on Burks too.

Daniels began his throwing motion, expecting Burks to be available, but had to pull the ball down when Luvu blew him up. Daniels was then forced to progress further to his right, but the coverage continued to be strong across the board. Leo Chenal had perhaps the best rep of the play, which is saying something given how strong the rep was by the entire defense. At the snap, Chenal is lined up just outside Odafe Oweh on the edge. He reads Burks motion and immediately gets his hands on Burks to disrupt his initial release inside, knocking Burks off his initial path before passing him off to Luvu to take over.

After getting his hands on Burks, Chenal peels off the receiver and gets his eyes on tight end Chig Okonkwo. Okonkwo initially stayed in to help chip Oweh on the edge before releasing into his route. Chenal comes off his contact with Burks and immediately gets physical with Okonkwo. He gets his hands on Okonkwo and gives him a strong shove, knocking him off balance as the tight end breaks outside to the flat. This disrupts Okonkwo’s timing and makes him late to get out to the flat, which also buys time for the defensive backs.

In the secondary, we can see safety Jeremy Reaves behind Chenal and cornerback Mike Sainristil to the outside. Initially, Sainristil was far outside covering Burks, but with the pre-snap motion, Sainristil followed the motion inside. Just before the snap, Reaves made a call and signal to Sainristil to stay outside and take on receiver Jaylin Lane, who was in the slot. Reaves works inside to cover Burks but Burks releases on a shallow cross that gets picked up first by Chenal and then Luvu. That frees up Reaves to sink back and look back outside to try and help Sainristil with Lane.

Lane initially works towards Sainristil to try and grab his attention and fake an outside-breaking route before working back inside. He does eventually get vertical to work to the back of the end zone. Sainristil gets his hands on him but quickly makes a call to Reaves to pass Lane off inside to the safety. Reaves was perhaps a touch too shallow due to the initial step up towards the Burks shallow cross, but he recognizes the threat of Lane and does well to open his hips and turn around to match Lane’s route and force him out the back of the end zone.

With Lane passed off to Reaves, Sainristil can then peel off and get down to the flat, where Okonkwo tries to break out to, but he gets delayed first by chipping Oweh, then by Chenal’s physical coverage. That gives Sainristil plenty of time to get back down to the flat and pick up that route too.

The Commanders had so much good coverage across the board here. Chaisson dropped into coverage comfortably and took away McLaurin’s spot route. Luvu and Chenal were both extremely physical on Burks’ shallow cross to take that away. Chenal also was physical with Okonkwo to delay him releasing to the flat. Reaves and Sainristil did a great job communicating and passing off Lane’s route to enable Sainristil to get back to the flat and cover Okonkwo. With coverage that good, it’s no wonder Jayden Daniels was forced to hold onto the ball and eventually take a sack.

There was only a four man rush up front and one of those was Kinlaw on the edge instead of a normal speedy edge rusher. The offensive line actually did a pretty good job against that four-man rush. Conerly dealt with Oweh after Okonkwo helped with the chip. Cosmi had a really good battle at right guard with Omenihu, but ultimately won. Center Julian Good-Jones and left guard Brandon Coleman combined on the double team to keep Tim Settle in check. Tunsil had a fun battle against Kinlaw. Kinlaw eventually did break through for what would have been a sack, but Tunsil, and in fact the whole line, battled long enough for a pass to be thrown. Daniels had at least four seconds from the snap of the ball to the moment Kinlaw sacked him. He managed to progress through multiple reads, including McLaurin, Burks, Lane and Okonkwo. The coverage was just too good and Daniels had nowhere to go with the ball.

That’s an encouraging sign for the Commanders on multiple fronts. The coverage was excellent across the board, which could rarely be said over the past two seasons. There were some good battles in the trenches and while the defensive line ultimately got the sack, the offensive line weren’t really at fault. They can’t be expected to block forever and Daniels had time to get through four reads, which would normally be more than enough to get the ball out. And from Daniels perspective, it was good to see him working through his progression, staying patient in the pocket, trusting his protection and not just taking off running. While ultimately he wasn’t able to find a pass and got sacked, that wasn’t really his fault given how good the coverage was. Obviously, we can’t get carried away with just one play, but it was certainly a very promising rep for the Commanders for a variety of reasons.

There was another goal line stop for the defense that is worth taking a closer look at. Fortunately I was able to find two separate angles of this clip. First up, we’ll see it from an offensive perspective. This clip comes from @WSHCarter on twitter, who tweeted out the play on Monday.