Really surprised, did not see that one coming. I thought he was excellent in 2024 and while he dropped off a bit in 2025, so did just about everyone. Thought if anything, they might have tried to extend him going into the final year of his contract. When I look at potential reasons, I’m not sure much adds up either.
Injury - This was the primary thought. He did end the season on IR after suffering a few injuries in Week 17, so my first thought was those injuries were worse than we had heard. But multiple beat reporters have said they don’t believe those injuries played a factor in this.
Cap space - After injury, I thought perhaps this was a move for some cap space. But when you look at it, he only saves $2.8m on the cap with an $8m dead cap hit. There’s far more obvious cap casualties than that - Lattimore, Payne, Harris among plenty of others. So it can’t be for cap relief. Now if it is a post-June 1 designation, then that would make a bit more sense because they would get $8m of cap space, but they’ve wouldn’t get that actual space until June, and they can’t officially release him with a post-June 1 designation until the start of the new league year. None of the reports said that was happening, so I’m not sure it’s this either.
Scheme - Next idea was potentially scheme fit with Blough and Stapleton now taking over. But I’ve been going on the assumption that they were going to run more zone given Staplenton’s history with zone, and Biadasz is a very athletic center so he’d be a great fit for that. Maybe they’re gonna go the other way and run more gap scheme, but they’ve been running gap scheme under Kliff and Biadasz was an asset because he was so athletic and could pull from the center position, which not every center can do.
So unless there’s some off-field issue that hasn’t come to light yet, and I don’t want to speculate on that being an actual thing, then it must just be performance related. I know Biadasz isn’t the biggest/strongest guy and isn’t the best pass protector, but he battles hard and loses slow, which is what you want from an OL. They must feel like they can get an upgrade in free agency/draft. But they wont be drafting a C at 7 and it would be very risky to go into the season with a 3rd round pick or later starting at center. So I have to believe they like the free agent class. Now, there is one legit elite center in free agency in Tyler Linderbaum. If they can land him, he would be a significant upgrade as one of the top centers in the NFL. But the Ravens are trying hard to get him signed before he hits free agency, like they did last year with Ronnie Stanley. Their GM said at the podium this week they have offered him a contract that would make him the highest paid center in the NFL, which sounds good but I’m always cautious about GMs saying things like that in public because it can often be the case they say something like that to get fans on side when in reality they are still lowballing the player compared to what he would get on the open market.
With Linderbaum, they aren’t going to tag him because the franchise tag for OL is shared regardless of position. So he’d get tagged at LT money rather than typical C money, which would completely reset the C market. They’ve already said they won’t be doing that, so I don’t see why Linderbaum’s agent would do anything but take him to the open market at this stage. But if he does that, Linderbaum will have interested from a lot of good teams because he’s a very good center. He’d have obviously links to the Giants with Harbaugh and the Chargers with the other Harbaugh. I’m sure a Shanahan style zone team like the 49ers or now the Raiders with Kubiak would be hugely interested in him too, So there’s absolutely no guarantee the Commanders would be able to land him. If their hope to upgrade Biadasz is Linderbaum, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have waited until free agency and made sure they could get Linderbaum before releasing Biadasz.
So yeah, it’s a confusing one for me. Perhaps they just felt he wasn’t very good but I wouldn’t agree with that. Will be very interesting to see what they do now because OL was one of the few stable positions on this team going into this offseason, and now they have lost that stability and created a new need for themselves.
The biggest question about this mystery move is: "What about that Chunky Soup commercial??" 😱 (Could TB63 have wanted higher billing in that ad... or more of the soup?? 😰)
It definitely is a shocker! And when you weighed a lot of possible reasons for the move in the balances, MB; injury, diminishing production, scheme fit… yada — they all were found wanting!
Of course, many of our thoughts go right to Linderbaum, but so do those of a LOT of NFL fans.(Look it up!) Checking less lofty options, good UFA centers out there include BUF’s Connor McGovern and CAR’s Cade Mays, plus others of lesser quality like TEN’s Lloyd Cushenberry (injured) and CLE’s Ethan Pocic (old).
There also seems to be some cap-cut speculation around GB’s Elgton Jenkins, DET’s Graham Glasgow, and MIN’s Ryan Kelly, but those are still way out there in the ether.
Odd, though, that what was thought to be a ➕ for the B&G is now a big ❓!! 🤔
Well, guys that would make some sense to cut from a cap perspective:
Frankie Luvu: 6.9m dead cap, 4.3m saving
Will Harris: 1m dead cap, 3.7m saving
Quan Martin: 600k dead cap, 3.6m saving
Nick Allegretti: 3.5m dead cap, 3.6m saving
Percy Butler: 675k dead cap, 2.1m saving
And one that wouldn’t make much sense, but neither did Biadasz
Dorance Armstrong: 9m dead cap, 3m saving.
I’ve seen a few people suggesting Armstong’s injury could make him a cut candidate, but the difference between Armstrong and Biadasz is that Armstrong took a big step forward last year and was probably their best defensive played before getting hurt. So unless they think he’s gonna miss a lot of time and not be ready to start the season, then I don’t think they’d cut him.
Luvu had a bigger drop off than Biadasz did, but there’s at least some reasoning for that. He was forced to play more as an edge rusher due to other injuries than his more natural LB spot. Plus Daronte Jones spoke pretty positively about him and pretty specifically about getting him matched up on RBs too, so not sure I see that happening.
He also spoke positively about Harris and Quan. Both would make plenty of sense from a cap perspective to cut, but they don’t really need the cap room. Quan definitely had a down year, Harris obviously spent most of the year hurt. But again, I think Jones has a role in mind for those two already.
Allegretti is a valuable back up swing lineman that can play all 3 interior spots, so I think it would make sense to keep him. But if they are gonna play more zone, then he’s not the best at that. I would still be reluctant to let decent OL leave, even as back ups, but they just cut Biadasz who I thought was a good starter so who knows?
Very interesting list, and I might even agree with a few of them - IF the Commanders were in salary cap distress. Happily, they are not.
I still luv Frankie and feel strong about Dorrance and would not want to see them go. But then I thought Tyler was a Badass and they let him go, so who knows?
Now if the plan is to replace those guys with others who are exponentially better, then I’m down. But short of that, I’ll run it back with FL4 & DA92.
(Fwiw, I am okay parting ways with the others if need be.)
Yes, I confess I'm puzzled. This move makes no sense to me either, so either the people in the building are on drugs, or they know something we don't know and once you factor the additional information in, the move will make some sort of sense.
I'm assuming it's the latter and we'll just have to find out what it is.
Yeah, well, the difference this time is no Dan Snyder poisoning the entire building and crippling the front office by hiring the wrong people and then interfering with their decisions.
Yeah, there could well be something we don’t know yet to come to light, we’ll have to wait and see. Definitely an odd one, wasn’t expecting it at all, certainly not now before FA. If they had got to FA and confirmed they were getting Linderbaum, for example, then sure I could see it. But it feels weird they’d do it now. Wonder if they tried to trade him at all
I’ve often wondered why teams—both the sellers and the buyers—don't work out more trades for expendable players.
1) The selling team gets a li’l sumthin for the guy, and b) the receiving team ensures they lock up a player they want!
But it seems few teams are willing to do that when a cap cut seems imminent; they’d rather keep the picks and take their chances in the free-agency scrum instead.
I guess that just reinforces the value of draft picks!
I guess theres 2 main factors at play there. 1. If you trade for a guy, you have to take on the contract and more often than not, the contract is the reason the selling team wants rid of him anyway. 2. Why give up anything if you can get them for free and much cheaper? Teams don’t just cut really good players for no reason, so they can’t be worth THAT much really. Sure, a 5th or 6th round pick for a guy like Biadasz would probably be a good deal for someone, but that would only grant them 1 year of control on a fairly expensive contract, compared to 4 years of control of a rookie, albeit a late round guy.
None of it makes sense. Even if we wanted to upgrade, unless you are desperate for cap relief, you don't release the current starter until you have an upgrade in hand, especially with so many other holes to fill on the roster.
There is most definitely a piece of the puzzle that has not yet come to light.
Your article states that the Vikings are 43 million over the salary cap. What does that mean? Do they just keep playing with that figure or is there any punishment associated with it?
So right now, they are not over the cap. But when the league year starts on March 11th and player contracts rollover to their 2026 terms instead of their 2025 terms, they are projected to be about 43 million over the cap. By rule, the Vikings have to be under the cap by the start of the new league year, so they will need to make some moves to clear out at least 43 million of cap space before March 11th.
If they don’t, then yes they can be punished, but I don’t recall any team ever being in violation of the cap, so I’m not sure what the punishment would be. I don’t think it will likely ever come to that.
It seems like any deal that pushes a team over the cap is considered null & void, and is not approved.
And it looks like there are tangible penalties in place for any teams (or players/agents) crazy enough to try to “circumvent” the cap, including multi-million dollar fines for teams, hundred thousands of dollar fines for club execs, and the loss of draft picks.
Pretty strong deterrent - not that the NFL would ever need it!
(Oops! It looks like there WERE a couple of teams who decided to “‘F’ around and find out” about playing fast & loose with the salary cap rules, after all! You'll NEVER guess who they were!! 🤣)
Yeah, which is different because there shouldn’t have been any rule that prevented Washington and Dallas from doing what they did, it was just the owners colluding and punishing Snyder/Jones for not colluding with them properly.
Been thinking about this “cap cuts” topic for a while, MB! Looks like a few useful pieces might be out there in a coupla weeks!
Is it a rule of thumb that most of these guys may have to take pay cuts when they sign with new teams - and only a few might be able to get similar-or-better contracts (like a Greenard, if he’s a casualty), or no? If yes, it may be a good time to do some bargain hunting, yeah?!
(Speaking of “caps”, does the NFL have a rule capping the number of Javons a team can have on their defensive line at any one time?? Might be a deal breaker!😜!)
Yeah, these players will receive a pretty decent chunk of money if they do get cut (one or two have zero guarantees, so they won’t get anything, but others will get something), so those players don’t need to get huge contracts. They can accept a cheaper deal to help out the team they’re signing with due to already being paid by the team they were just cut from.
That being said, a guy like Greenard probably could demand a pretty decent contract, I agree.
For anyone that is still here and hasn’t seen the Commanders news today - The Commanders have promoted TE coach David Raih to pass game coordinator, taking over the job left by Brian Jonson. The Commanders have also hired Ben Steele to take Raih’s old job of TE coach.
Steele is an interesting hire. He was on Dan Quinn’s staff in Atlanta in 2019/2020, first as an offensive assistant in 19, and then TE coach in 20. He spent the last 3 seasons in Arizona as the TE coach there. That’s notable because Trey McBride has developed into one of the top TEs in the NFL during those 3 seasons, taking a big leap from his rookie year when Steele wasn’t there and then having big seasons in all 3 years Steele was there.
Some other noteworthy points on Steele. In Arizona, he coached under Drew Petzing, who was the offensive coordinator there. Petzing was the best man at Ben Johnson’s wedding. Obviously, we know that David Blough played for Ben Johnson and is expected to try and install a version of Johnson’s offense. So there’s a loose connection there.
But another interesting note is that between his stops in Atlanta and Arizona, Steele spent time as the assistant offensive line coach under Klint Kubiak for 2 years. He spent 2021 in Minnesota under Kubiak and then follow Kubiak to Denver in 2022, filling the role of assistant offensive line coach both times. So he has experience working in a Shanahan-style zone run scheme as an assistant OL coach, as well as being a TE coach. That could be a valuable piece to have on the coaching staff. I’ve been anticipating the Commanders to try and run more zone this year under Blough for 2 reasons. First, new OL coach Darnell Stapleton coached almost exclusively zone scheme before coming to Washington when he was the OL coach at Florida. Secondly, Ben Johnson just showed a good blueprint for Blough to follow. Johnson has a very diverse run game as we saw with the Lions, but in year 1 with the bears, he dialed that back and kept the scheme to more basic zone stuff as his players learned the system.
That level of investigative reporting would do your fellow Substacker, the great Judd Legum, proud!
If I didn’t know better, I’d say all the moving pieces of David Blough’s offense are starting to come together! Now all we have to find out is whether they work with the precision of a Swiss watch, or clank & clatter like a Rube Goldberg contraption! 😜
I gotta kick outta you & Galdi going back & forth today about if you planned on going to the Comms’ Tottenham game. All that time I'm protesting, “Hell no…Mark’s got hundreds of followers depending on him to host a game thread in the manner to which they have become accustomed! How can he do that from a seat in Hotspur Stadium??!!” 🤣🤣🤣
Tell what though, if I DO make there as hoped, I will do all I can to check in from the venue!
Mark - what do you think of the Biadasz news?
Really surprised, did not see that one coming. I thought he was excellent in 2024 and while he dropped off a bit in 2025, so did just about everyone. Thought if anything, they might have tried to extend him going into the final year of his contract. When I look at potential reasons, I’m not sure much adds up either.
Injury - This was the primary thought. He did end the season on IR after suffering a few injuries in Week 17, so my first thought was those injuries were worse than we had heard. But multiple beat reporters have said they don’t believe those injuries played a factor in this.
Cap space - After injury, I thought perhaps this was a move for some cap space. But when you look at it, he only saves $2.8m on the cap with an $8m dead cap hit. There’s far more obvious cap casualties than that - Lattimore, Payne, Harris among plenty of others. So it can’t be for cap relief. Now if it is a post-June 1 designation, then that would make a bit more sense because they would get $8m of cap space, but they’ve wouldn’t get that actual space until June, and they can’t officially release him with a post-June 1 designation until the start of the new league year. None of the reports said that was happening, so I’m not sure it’s this either.
Scheme - Next idea was potentially scheme fit with Blough and Stapleton now taking over. But I’ve been going on the assumption that they were going to run more zone given Staplenton’s history with zone, and Biadasz is a very athletic center so he’d be a great fit for that. Maybe they’re gonna go the other way and run more gap scheme, but they’ve been running gap scheme under Kliff and Biadasz was an asset because he was so athletic and could pull from the center position, which not every center can do.
So unless there’s some off-field issue that hasn’t come to light yet, and I don’t want to speculate on that being an actual thing, then it must just be performance related. I know Biadasz isn’t the biggest/strongest guy and isn’t the best pass protector, but he battles hard and loses slow, which is what you want from an OL. They must feel like they can get an upgrade in free agency/draft. But they wont be drafting a C at 7 and it would be very risky to go into the season with a 3rd round pick or later starting at center. So I have to believe they like the free agent class. Now, there is one legit elite center in free agency in Tyler Linderbaum. If they can land him, he would be a significant upgrade as one of the top centers in the NFL. But the Ravens are trying hard to get him signed before he hits free agency, like they did last year with Ronnie Stanley. Their GM said at the podium this week they have offered him a contract that would make him the highest paid center in the NFL, which sounds good but I’m always cautious about GMs saying things like that in public because it can often be the case they say something like that to get fans on side when in reality they are still lowballing the player compared to what he would get on the open market.
With Linderbaum, they aren’t going to tag him because the franchise tag for OL is shared regardless of position. So he’d get tagged at LT money rather than typical C money, which would completely reset the C market. They’ve already said they won’t be doing that, so I don’t see why Linderbaum’s agent would do anything but take him to the open market at this stage. But if he does that, Linderbaum will have interested from a lot of good teams because he’s a very good center. He’d have obviously links to the Giants with Harbaugh and the Chargers with the other Harbaugh. I’m sure a Shanahan style zone team like the 49ers or now the Raiders with Kubiak would be hugely interested in him too, So there’s absolutely no guarantee the Commanders would be able to land him. If their hope to upgrade Biadasz is Linderbaum, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have waited until free agency and made sure they could get Linderbaum before releasing Biadasz.
So yeah, it’s a confusing one for me. Perhaps they just felt he wasn’t very good but I wouldn’t agree with that. Will be very interesting to see what they do now because OL was one of the few stable positions on this team going into this offseason, and now they have lost that stability and created a new need for themselves.
The biggest question about this mystery move is: "What about that Chunky Soup commercial??" 😱 (Could TB63 have wanted higher billing in that ad... or more of the soup?? 😰)
It definitely is a shocker! And when you weighed a lot of possible reasons for the move in the balances, MB; injury, diminishing production, scheme fit… yada — they all were found wanting!
Of course, many of our thoughts go right to Linderbaum, but so do those of a LOT of NFL fans.(Look it up!) Checking less lofty options, good UFA centers out there include BUF’s Connor McGovern and CAR’s Cade Mays, plus others of lesser quality like TEN’s Lloyd Cushenberry (injured) and CLE’s Ethan Pocic (old).
There also seems to be some cap-cut speculation around GB’s Elgton Jenkins, DET’s Graham Glasgow, and MIN’s Ryan Kelly, but those are still way out there in the ether.
Odd, though, that what was thought to be a ➕ for the B&G is now a big ❓!! 🤔
Yeah, very puzzling move. They must have thought he either was way worse than I felt he was last year, or they have some plan to upgrade.
I wonder if there are any more surprise cuts coming?
Oooh… lets speculate!!!😃
Well, guys that would make some sense to cut from a cap perspective:
Frankie Luvu: 6.9m dead cap, 4.3m saving
Will Harris: 1m dead cap, 3.7m saving
Quan Martin: 600k dead cap, 3.6m saving
Nick Allegretti: 3.5m dead cap, 3.6m saving
Percy Butler: 675k dead cap, 2.1m saving
And one that wouldn’t make much sense, but neither did Biadasz
Dorance Armstrong: 9m dead cap, 3m saving.
I’ve seen a few people suggesting Armstong’s injury could make him a cut candidate, but the difference between Armstrong and Biadasz is that Armstrong took a big step forward last year and was probably their best defensive played before getting hurt. So unless they think he’s gonna miss a lot of time and not be ready to start the season, then I don’t think they’d cut him.
Luvu had a bigger drop off than Biadasz did, but there’s at least some reasoning for that. He was forced to play more as an edge rusher due to other injuries than his more natural LB spot. Plus Daronte Jones spoke pretty positively about him and pretty specifically about getting him matched up on RBs too, so not sure I see that happening.
He also spoke positively about Harris and Quan. Both would make plenty of sense from a cap perspective to cut, but they don’t really need the cap room. Quan definitely had a down year, Harris obviously spent most of the year hurt. But again, I think Jones has a role in mind for those two already.
Allegretti is a valuable back up swing lineman that can play all 3 interior spots, so I think it would make sense to keep him. But if they are gonna play more zone, then he’s not the best at that. I would still be reluctant to let decent OL leave, even as back ups, but they just cut Biadasz who I thought was a good starter so who knows?
Very interesting list, and I might even agree with a few of them - IF the Commanders were in salary cap distress. Happily, they are not.
I still luv Frankie and feel strong about Dorrance and would not want to see them go. But then I thought Tyler was a Badass and they let him go, so who knows?
Now if the plan is to replace those guys with others who are exponentially better, then I’m down. But short of that, I’ll run it back with FL4 & DA92.
(Fwiw, I am okay parting ways with the others if need be.)
Yes, I confess I'm puzzled. This move makes no sense to me either, so either the people in the building are on drugs, or they know something we don't know and once you factor the additional information in, the move will make some sort of sense.
I'm assuming it's the latter and we'll just have to find out what it is.
Right, Ray. They GOTTA know something WE don’t know, right??!!😰
(But I hafta admit, I’ve thought that many times over the decades only to find out later that they actually DIDN’T! 😖)
Yeah, well, the difference this time is no Dan Snyder poisoning the entire building and crippling the front office by hiring the wrong people and then interfering with their decisions.
Yeah, there could well be something we don’t know yet to come to light, we’ll have to wait and see. Definitely an odd one, wasn’t expecting it at all, certainly not now before FA. If they had got to FA and confirmed they were getting Linderbaum, for example, then sure I could see it. But it feels weird they’d do it now. Wonder if they tried to trade him at all
I’ve often wondered why teams—both the sellers and the buyers—don't work out more trades for expendable players.
1) The selling team gets a li’l sumthin for the guy, and b) the receiving team ensures they lock up a player they want!
But it seems few teams are willing to do that when a cap cut seems imminent; they’d rather keep the picks and take their chances in the free-agency scrum instead.
I guess that just reinforces the value of draft picks!
I guess theres 2 main factors at play there. 1. If you trade for a guy, you have to take on the contract and more often than not, the contract is the reason the selling team wants rid of him anyway. 2. Why give up anything if you can get them for free and much cheaper? Teams don’t just cut really good players for no reason, so they can’t be worth THAT much really. Sure, a 5th or 6th round pick for a guy like Biadasz would probably be a good deal for someone, but that would only grant them 1 year of control on a fairly expensive contract, compared to 4 years of control of a rookie, albeit a late round guy.
Boom goes the dynamite!🧨
That contact point was dead on!
None of it makes sense. Even if we wanted to upgrade, unless you are desperate for cap relief, you don't release the current starter until you have an upgrade in hand, especially with so many other holes to fill on the roster.
There is most definitely a piece of the puzzle that has not yet come to light.
Your article states that the Vikings are 43 million over the salary cap. What does that mean? Do they just keep playing with that figure or is there any punishment associated with it?
So right now, they are not over the cap. But when the league year starts on March 11th and player contracts rollover to their 2026 terms instead of their 2025 terms, they are projected to be about 43 million over the cap. By rule, the Vikings have to be under the cap by the start of the new league year, so they will need to make some moves to clear out at least 43 million of cap space before March 11th.
If they don’t, then yes they can be punished, but I don’t recall any team ever being in violation of the cap, so I’m not sure what the punishment would be. I don’t think it will likely ever come to that.
It seems like any deal that pushes a team over the cap is considered null & void, and is not approved.
And it looks like there are tangible penalties in place for any teams (or players/agents) crazy enough to try to “circumvent” the cap, including multi-million dollar fines for teams, hundred thousands of dollar fines for club execs, and the loss of draft picks.
Pretty strong deterrent - not that the NFL would ever need it!
https://overthecap.com/collective-bargaining-agreement/article/14/section/6?utm_source=chatgpt.com
(Way too much time on my hands!😅)
(Oops! It looks like there WERE a couple of teams who decided to “‘F’ around and find out” about playing fast & loose with the salary cap rules, after all! You'll NEVER guess who they were!! 🤣)
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/11124038/nflowners-acted-collusion-dallas-cowboys-washington-redskins-did-wrong-uncapped-2010-season
Yeah, which is different because there shouldn’t have been any rule that prevented Washington and Dallas from doing what they did, it was just the owners colluding and punishing Snyder/Jones for not colluding with them properly.
Hahaha! Hilarious!
Been thinking about this “cap cuts” topic for a while, MB! Looks like a few useful pieces might be out there in a coupla weeks!
Is it a rule of thumb that most of these guys may have to take pay cuts when they sign with new teams - and only a few might be able to get similar-or-better contracts (like a Greenard, if he’s a casualty), or no? If yes, it may be a good time to do some bargain hunting, yeah?!
(Speaking of “caps”, does the NFL have a rule capping the number of Javons a team can have on their defensive line at any one time?? Might be a deal breaker!😜!)
Yeah, these players will receive a pretty decent chunk of money if they do get cut (one or two have zero guarantees, so they won’t get anything, but others will get something), so those players don’t need to get huge contracts. They can accept a cheaper deal to help out the team they’re signing with due to already being paid by the team they were just cut from.
That being said, a guy like Greenard probably could demand a pretty decent contract, I agree.
Hmmm…I never thought about those guarantees.
I learn something here every day!🙏
(But nothing on the “Javons” cap limit??)🤣🤣🤣
For anyone that is still here and hasn’t seen the Commanders news today - The Commanders have promoted TE coach David Raih to pass game coordinator, taking over the job left by Brian Jonson. The Commanders have also hired Ben Steele to take Raih’s old job of TE coach.
Steele is an interesting hire. He was on Dan Quinn’s staff in Atlanta in 2019/2020, first as an offensive assistant in 19, and then TE coach in 20. He spent the last 3 seasons in Arizona as the TE coach there. That’s notable because Trey McBride has developed into one of the top TEs in the NFL during those 3 seasons, taking a big leap from his rookie year when Steele wasn’t there and then having big seasons in all 3 years Steele was there.
Some other noteworthy points on Steele. In Arizona, he coached under Drew Petzing, who was the offensive coordinator there. Petzing was the best man at Ben Johnson’s wedding. Obviously, we know that David Blough played for Ben Johnson and is expected to try and install a version of Johnson’s offense. So there’s a loose connection there.
But another interesting note is that between his stops in Atlanta and Arizona, Steele spent time as the assistant offensive line coach under Klint Kubiak for 2 years. He spent 2021 in Minnesota under Kubiak and then follow Kubiak to Denver in 2022, filling the role of assistant offensive line coach both times. So he has experience working in a Shanahan-style zone run scheme as an assistant OL coach, as well as being a TE coach. That could be a valuable piece to have on the coaching staff. I’ve been anticipating the Commanders to try and run more zone this year under Blough for 2 reasons. First, new OL coach Darnell Stapleton coached almost exclusively zone scheme before coming to Washington when he was the OL coach at Florida. Secondly, Ben Johnson just showed a good blueprint for Blough to follow. Johnson has a very diverse run game as we saw with the Lions, but in year 1 with the bears, he dialed that back and kept the scheme to more basic zone stuff as his players learned the system.
Dude, that is some key intel!
That level of investigative reporting would do your fellow Substacker, the great Judd Legum, proud!
If I didn’t know better, I’d say all the moving pieces of David Blough’s offense are starting to come together! Now all we have to find out is whether they work with the precision of a Swiss watch, or clank & clatter like a Rube Goldberg contraption! 😜
Cheers!
One last thing. (Scouts’ honor!✋)
I gotta kick outta you & Galdi going back & forth today about if you planned on going to the Comms’ Tottenham game. All that time I'm protesting, “Hell no…Mark’s got hundreds of followers depending on him to host a game thread in the manner to which they have become accustomed! How can he do that from a seat in Hotspur Stadium??!!” 🤣🤣🤣
Tell what though, if I DO make there as hoped, I will do all I can to check in from the venue!