Did Commanders OL changes help improve the offense?

Taking a closer look at LG Chris Paul's performance to break down if the changes to the offensive line had a significant impact on the performance of the offense.

The Commanders had a big turnaround in performance on the offensive side of the ball this week. Against the Giants, the offense managed just seven points and quarterback Sam Howell was sacked six times. Against the Eagles a week later, the offense put up 31 points and Howell was sacked just once. So what changed? Center Nick Gates was benched for back up center Tyler Larsen while left guard Saahdiq Charles picked up an injury in that Giants game and was replaced by Chris Paul in the Eagles game. It’s only natural then to assume that the few changes made on the offensive line had a huge impact.

Just because the offense suddenly became significantly more productive doesn’t mean it was down to the two offensive line changes. This is a prime example of correlation does not equal causation. To prove that point, I want to focus on the performance of Chris Paul, as many of you have asked me how he played in place of Charles. I’ll be completely up front in saying I wrote that I would have gone with Paul over Charles to start the season at left guard. However, Paul replacing Charles was not the reason the offense was productive. Let’s take a closer look at Paul’s performance to dive into it. 

We’ll start with a positive and look at the first play of the game. Paul at left guard has a defensive tackle playing with quite a wide and aggressive alignment. Rather than being on his outside shoulder, the defender is almost head up over the left tackle. This is to give him the best possible angle to rush the quarterback. Paul knows he isn’t necessarily the quickest and most nimble on his feet, so he needs to make sure he cuts off that angle early to prevent the defender getting the upper hand. 

So Paul uses a quick set, stepping out towards the defender instead of dropping back into a typical pass set. This enables Paul to cut down that angle and get his hands on the defender early. With that early punch, he’s able to knock the defender back and take away that initial rush plan, forcing the defender to try and transition to a back up move. By the time he’s recovered from the punch, however, the ball is already out of the quarterback’s hands. 

This is a solid rep from Paul and a smart one two, understanding his leverage disadvantage and using his pass set to help negate that. He also knew the play was designed to be a quick pass, so he could afford to be more aggressive in this situation knowing he only had to cut off that initial rush to give the quarterback enough time to get rid of the ball. 

However, it wasn’t long before Paul had a few bad reps. 

On this play we see the defensive tackle align much closer to Paul, more on his outside shoulder. That means Paul doesn’t have as much ground to make up but it also opens up the possibility of the defender stunting inside and attacking his inside shoulder. The passing concept is also a different one, with receiver Byron Pringle running a double move outside which takes a little more time to develop, meaning Paul needs to hold up a little longer in protection and thus can’t afford to be quite so aggressive. 

Unfortunately, Paul still looks to be somewhat aggressive. He doesn’t drop back and sit patiently, waiting for the rush to come to him. He takes one sideways step off the snap and then lunges with his hands to try and engage with the block early. Now as we saw before, engaging with a block early can be advantageous because it can cut off the initial rush, but it requires a certain technique to pull it off. Here, Paul fails to step forward towards the defender and close the gap between them, so when he then looks to land a punch, he has to lunge and reach forward to try and do so. 

What this means is that Paul’s center of gravity falls forward instead of being over his feet. Without the feet going with the hands, the hands lack conviction with the punch, which enables the defender to simply ride the punch and then swipe those hands aside with a club move. That club knocks Paul off balance because of him lunging, which then allows the defender to transition into a swim move and skip by Paul. The defender then closes in quickly on the quarterback and that pressure forces Howell to hurry his throw and end up missing an open receiver for what should have been a touchdown. 

Getting his feet and his hands working in sync is going to be key for Paul over the next few weeks while Charles is absent. Paul is a bigger body and with that comes some natural stoutness to absorb a lot of power, but when he doesn’t get his feet and hands in sync, he can lose balance and get pushed back.