Scott Turner and the issue of sequential play-calling
Breaking down Turner's struggles with sequential play-calling
Washington Commanders fans have been calling for the head of offensive coordinator Scott Turner for a while now. After a disappointing season in which Ron Rivera built up expectations, the team fell short of the playoffs with the offense letting the defense down consistently throughout the season. The calls for Turner to be fired have grown louder and louder over the last month in particular as the Commanders offense looked stale and lacking cohesion throughout the month of December.
The numbers that the offense put up weren’t good enough for a team with as much talent at the skill positions that the Commanders have, but that’s not necessarily all on Turner. He’s always talked about wanting to be a pass first team but Rivera lives in the classic mindset of establishing the run game and building from that. So it may be his hands were tied a bit in terms of how frequently he could call passes, we don’t know.
There’s also the situation at quarterback. Turner has had eight different quarterbacks start for him in the three years he’s been here, and Taylor Heinicke, who is widely considered a back up by NFL standards, has been the most consistent one. Up front, the offensive line has dealt with multiple injuries too. Washington had four different starting centers in 2021 and three in 2022. That’s not to mention the rotating guards every other week and occasionally some injuries at tackle too, making it hard to have a settled unit.
So the situation for Turner hasn’t been easy, but that doesn’t mean he gets a free pass either. My opinion on Turner is that he’s not a horrible coordinator, despite what fans want to hear. That doesn’t mean he’s a great one either, but there are pieces there that suggest he could become a good one. Individual play design is a strength. The detail to use an unbalanced line on Sam Howell’s touchdown run against the Cowboys, for example, was inspired as it forced the Cowboys into a shifted front away from the read-option side of the field.
He has a few nice packages too. The empty sets are well designed and often create mismatches that the quarterbacks haven’t done a good enough job taking advantage of. Being able to shift from a primarily zone-based run scheme last year with Antonio Gibson at running back to a primarily gap-based run scheme with Brian Robinson this year and still be successful with it deserves plenty of credit too.
Where I feel Turner falls down is his sequencing and his ability to tie everything together. While he can design terrific individual plays and even some nice packages of plays, he rarely manages to weave them all together nicely. Let me show you some examples from the Cowboys game this past Sunday.
On the opening couple of series, the Commanders looked to run the ball via a bunch of under center, wide zone runs. This clip shows the three plays that are all wide zone scheme runs on the same drive. They all look relatively similar, with the first two being run out of heavy personnel and to the right while the third play is a little more spread out, runs to the left and incorporates a jet sweep fake.
That’s all good stuff on its own. With Sam Cosmi back at right tackle, Wes Schweitzer at center and Chris Paul at left guard, the Commanders offensive line was better suited to the zone scheme than gap scheme this week. With three solid zone scheme runs, the Commanders should be able to build off that into a nice play-action fake, either into a bootleg or a deeper shot down the field. Simply fake the same wide zone scheme they’ve already shown multiple times. However, when Turner does call his first play-action pass, he fakes a run scheme they had yet to show in the game.
Instead of faking the wide zone scheme that they had been showing the Cowboys, Turner calls a play-action pass with a different run scheme fake. He lines up a tight end out wide to the right and has him motion in before the snap, then uses both the motioning tight end and the fullback to work back across the line of scrimmage and block the edge, like their gap scheme runs they had been using with Brian Robinson earlier this season. On top of that, Sam Howell fakes the hand off to his right while the running back fakes getting the ball to Howell’s left before joining the tight ends in blocking. The linebackers never really bite on the play, instead they hold their position and look for possible receiving threats leaking out to the flats.
After that play, Turner called another zone run from under center, and then later down the line called his second play-action pass.
This time, Turner does call a more natural fake for the zone scheme runs he had been using. This is a bootleg scheme, which meshes perfectly with the wide zone scheme normally. However, Turner had been calling a bunch of zone scheme runs from under center, but this play-action pass came with the quarterback in the shotgun, a look they hadn’t yet shown the Cowboys. The scheme works to an extent, but it only gets one of the two linebackers to bite on the fake. The other linebacker spots the tight end leaking to the flat and immediately matches him, taking that route away. Fortunately, the other linebacker and the defensive end on the back side do bite on the fake and Howell is able to keep the ball himself and run for a first down.
The play itself is a good design. Having Samuel fake a jet sweep into a wheel route is a great concept. Getting Howell to roll out on a bootleg from the shotgun works nicely too, but it would be much more effective if they had been showing runs from the shotgun first. They might have got that second linebacker to bite and had the tight end wide open in the flat. Alternatively, they could have run a bootleg from under center, with the runs they had been establishing, to help sell the fake that much more.
Turner’s third play-action call didn’t involved a wide zone fake either.
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