Examining if criticisms of Eric Bieniemy's offense are fair

Looking at some of the common criticisms of the Commanders offense and breaking down how fair those criticisms are

The hiring of Eric Bieniemy as offensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders has been one of the most discussed topics by Commanders fans this season. In an ideal world, he and Sam Howell would have produced a fantastic offense and Bieniemy could have been elevated to head coach to continue that progress going forward. Obviously it hasn’t quite worked out like that and Bieniemy has come in for some criticism from fans, some fair and some not so much. I thought I’d go over some of the more common critiques of Bieniemy this season and give my opinions on them.

The obvious place to start would be with the lack of running the ball and leaning heavily into passing. Traditionally with a young quarterback like Howell that has some mobility, I think most coordinators would have looked to have leaned on the run game, incorporate Howell’s mobility into the run game with read-option looks, build off all that with a heavy play-action attack and then slowly build out into a more drop back system. That's exactly the blueprint that the Eagles used so successfully while developing Jalen Hurts and I wrote about that path in the offseason. Bieniemy’s method has obviously been drastically different and while I think getting Howell so many passing reps to see so many different looks is ultimately beneficial to his development, I think they could have taken a different approach. 

But the decision to be so pass heavy could lead to a whole article on its own. Instead, I want to focus on some other criticisms that I’ve seen. One of those criticisms of Bieniemy’s offense has been the route spacing. People often point to route spacing when two receivers cross paths and say the spacing is bad, but often routes crossing are by design to try and help create traffic for trailing defenders. However, there certainly have been times this season when the route spacing between receivers has been questionable. 

On this play against the Rams, we see the Commanders looking to run a post-wheel combination to the left of the formation. This is a route combination the Commanders have run routinely this season and clearly one Bieniemy likes, but the spacing here is off. Terry McLaurin, the outside receiver running the post, never really breaks inside towards the post. He releases inside off the snap but then stays vertical and never looks to break inside. This means that when Jamison Crowder runs the wheel route behind him and breaks down the sideline, both receivers are left running into the same area, just staggered a few yards behind each other. Crowder actually gets a step on his defender, but because McLaurin is just a few yards ahead of him, Crowder isn’t really open as the thread of McLaurin’s defender is still nearby. 

Now it’s impossible to say if this is on the individual receivers for not running the routes properly, the receivers coach for not teaching those details correctly or on Bieniemy for not considering those smaller details when designing the play. Bieniemy is known to be a detail-oriented person, so it would be odd if he misses that kind of detail, so perhaps he has these routes spaced like this deliberately. But I can say that this isn’t just a one-off for this type of play. There are quite often routes on certain concepts that end up in the same area, which isn’t ideal. That would be something I would expect Bieniemy to have fixed after self-scouting during the bye week, but clearly it’s still there at this point which is an issue. 

Another criticism I’d have of Bieniemy with regards to route combinations is on some of the sprint rollout plays. The sprint rollout plays can be very effective, especially in short yardage situations to pick up a quick first down and move the chains. They’re also a nice way to make use of Sam Howell’s mobility to throw on the run and help keep things very simple for him by cutting down the field to a much smaller area. However, the Commanders have quite a few variations of the sprint rollout plays and a few of them that don’t make things as easy on Howell as they could. 

Here, the Commanders have Howell rollout to the left on a sprint rollout play. Terry McLaurin runs a deep hook route designed to create traffic for Jahan Dotson’s out route from the slot. Fullback Alex Armah runs a crossing route from the back side as a final option. In theory, it’s a nice design but in reality it’s pretty poor. The Rams don’t play man coverage, they drop into zone which means the pick play from McLaurin doesn’t help open up Dotson’s route. The Rams have a defender in the flat, so Dotson’s route is covered. 

Now, you might say that McLaurin is open and Armah is potentially an option on his crossing route too. You’d be right that McLaurin is definitely open, but just look at Howell’s body position when McLaurin breaks open. By design, he’s rolling out to his left and the only real throw he can make is the Dotson route. To find McLaurin, he’d have to fully open up his body, adjust his feet and throw back against his momentum, which is very difficult to do and entirely unrealistic to ask of Howell. That makes this play really only a one route play which isn’t an optimal use of the pieces the Commanders have. 

With all that being said, I think there have been some strong parts of the Bieniemy system and we saw that against the Rams too. When studying the Chiefs last year under Bieniemy, one of the things that stood out was that they always seemed to have a great play call ready in the right situation, meaning their scouting of defensive tendencies was very strong. They didn’t just know what type of coverage the defense would be in on certain situations, but the rules of that coverage and how to exploit those rules by putting defenders in binds. Bieniemy perhaps hasn’t been able to fully replicate that in Washington yet, but there are still signs that the advanced scouting and understanding of opposition tendencies and coverage rules have traveled with him from Kansas City. 

On this play, the Commanders are just inside the red zone and align with a bunch set to the left of the formation. At the point of the bunch, Jahan Dotson runs a curl route while inside of him, tight end Logan Thomas breaks out to the flat. On the outside, Curtis Samuel releases inside in order to create enough space for him to then break back outside on a corner route. This is a very well designed route combination built to attack this specific situation. The Rams appear to play a version of quarters coverage here, so the idea here is to use Dotson and Samuel to put the cornerback and safety in a bind. 

With Samuel releasing inside, Dotson becomes the immediate threat to the outside cornerback. Dotson works at a slight angle outside to try and grab the attention of the outside cornerback before breaking off the route as he curls back to the quarterback. This drags the cornerback in coverage inside towards him, creating space over the top of him. Samuel then breaks into the space and runs away from the safety. The safety fails to attach to him, leaving Samuel wide open, but even if the safety had attached to him, there was plenty of space for Howell to lead Samuel away from the safety towards the sideline. 

It’s a very well designed play and there are signs of those types of designs for specific coverages that pop up every week with Bieniemy. It’s certainly not frequent enough given how the offense has played overall, but perhaps some of that comes down to Bieniemy not being able to fully hire the staff he might have wanted and being stretched too thin. 

Another criticism I’ve seen of Bieniemy has been his lack of creativity. I don’t necessarily agree there has been no creativity within the offense, obviously with the results they’ve had you could argue for some more creativity but I’d say there has been creative elements within the offense. I think the more apt criticism, which is related to the creativity critique, is the failure to create individual packages to make use of the weapons the Commanders have. I’ve written throughout the season about how the offensive philosophy is more about spreading the ball around and not forcing it to any particular receiver, but with the weapons Washington has I would still like to see some more packages designed for each player. 

An example of the type of package I’m looking for can be seen over the last few games with Curtis Samuel. Samuel is a very flexible player that has spent time at both running back and wide receiver throughout his career to date. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Bieniemy lean into that a lot more often and line up Samuel in the backfield more often with plays designed around him. 

Here’s a few examples of that package of plays built around Samuel. The first play of this clip sees Samuel line up in the backfield while running back Brian Robinson replaces him at receiver. This is a fun alignment for the offense because it messes with the defense and how they match up with players in unfamiliar positions pre-snap. But on top of that, it puts Samuel in a strong position to run a choice route from the backfield. In an ideal world, he gets matched up on a linebacker and leaves them in the dirt but if the defense recognizes Samuel in the backfield instead of Robinson and matches him with a cornerback in the box, then the Commanders would have a very favorable look to run into and Samuel is more than capable of taking the ball on a hand off. 

In the end, Samuel runs a choice route and Howell hits him quickly over the middle for a first down and nearly a touchdown. The following week, the Commanders showed the same look again, with Samuel running a choice route of the backfield. It works again and Samuel makes a nice catch over the middle, but this time it was as part of a set up for the final play of the clip. Having already seen Samuel in the backfield on a choice route, the Dolphins expect him to do the same again the second time they see it. However, this time Samuel fakes the break inside and takes off down the sideline. He runs by the coverage and very nearly scores a touchdown as a result. 

Bieniemy even built on this package against the Rams this past week. 

Like with that previous package of clips, we see Samuel align in the backfield alongside the quarterback. This time though, he aligns to the right side with receiver Terry McLaurin aligned tight to the right side of the formation. McLaurin and Samuel execute what’s known in the Shanahan coaching tree as a Flag concept. Typically, this would consist of a slot receiver running a corner route while the outside receiver runs a pivot route, breaking outside to sell an out route before pivoting back inside underneath the corner route. 

The Commanders run the same concept here, just get to it from a very different look. Samuel runs the corner route from the backfield, which alerts the defense and gets them to sink back to stay on top of it. That opens up a ton of space underneath for McLaurin’s route as he breaks back inside and becomes an easy target for Howell. 

This is the type of packages of plays built around individual players that the offense has lacked this season. We’re starting to see this package of plays around Samuel’s ability to line up in the backfield over these last few weeks, which is great, but we’ve not seen a similar package of plays built around McLaurin or Dotson and we’ve certainly not seen those different packages meshed together cohesively in the way that San Francisco does with guys like Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle. 

Now again, in fairness to Bieniemy, he hasn’t been able to fully hire his own staff, having to retain the majority of the offensive staff Rivera had in place last year. I’m sure if Bieniemy had been able to hire his ideal staff then the offense would be a little further forward than it is now, so we’re probably not getting a full reflection of exactly what Bieniemy can do right now, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we would see a drastically improved offense if Bieniemy was able to hire his own staff. 

Ultimately, I think anyone that believes Bieniemy is a terrible coordinator and did nothing in Kansas City is mistaken. There are certainly flashes of very good elements in this offense and things that help the development of a young quarterback like Sam Howell. But given how this season has gone to date, I think it’s unlikely Bieniemy will be retained in Washington beyond this season. Perhaps if the Commanders hire a defensive minded head coach that wants to build around Howell, then he keeps Bieniemy on for the sake of continuity. Then he’d have a second year to build on the progress Howell has made this season and improve the overall offense going forward. But I suspect the most likely option is we’ll be seeing a new play-caller in Washington next season.