Should the Commanders pursue LT Orlando Brown Jr. in free agency?
If the Chiefs allow Brown to hit the open market, should the Commanders be interested?
With the Washington Commanders finally hiring Eric Bieniemy to fill the vacant offensive coordinator role, the team can now move forward and focus on upcoming offseason activities. Free agency is just a few weeks away and the Commanders have some cap room to work with. I think it’s rather unlikely the team makes a big splash in free agency, but if there is a splash move to be made, it would likely come in the form of Orlando Brown Jr.
In 2021, the Chiefs gave up their first-round pick in part of a package of picks to land Brown in a trade from the Ravens. Brown had played right tackle for his career in Baltimore, but felt he was a left tackle and deserved to be paid as such. After two years and a Super Bowl victory with the Chiefs, Brown is now a free agent and will be looking for top of the market left tackle money. The Chiefs could well opt to use the franchise tag on him, but they’ve got some decisions to be made regarding the salary cap that could result in them allowing Brown to hit the market.
Obviously the connection here would be Brown and Bieniemy. Washington already has a solid, experienced left tackle in Charles Leno, who is a veteran leader along that offensive line. But Brown is familiar with Bieniemy’s system and terminology and style of coaching. He’s also just about to turn 27, so still has plenty of years ahead of him.
So in a scenario that the Chiefs let Brown hit the market and Bieniemy wants to build the Commanders offensive line around one of his former players, what would Brown bring to Washington? Let’s take a closer look.
The first thing that stands out, both as a positive and negative, is Brown’s size. Brown is listed at a massive 6-foot-8, 340 pounds. With that size, Brown brings a lot of power and can really move people, especially in the run game.
These are just two of many examples of the strength and power Brown brings to the field. The first play of this clip comes against the Chargers. Brown works initially with the left guard as part of a double team on the defensive tackle inside, blocking down to allow the right side of the line to pull across and kick out the edge defenders and clear a lane. Brown takes on the majority of the block off the snap, but the left guard does assist too. The pair drive the defensive tackle backwards three or four yards off the ball, before the guard peels off to look for other work. Brown continues with the block and drives the defender back to five or six yards off the ball before finishing the block to the ground.
The second play of the clip comes from the Super Bowl victory over the Eagles. It’s a similar assignment for Brown, but this time he’s working one-on-one against Jason Hargrave, who is a strong run defender. Brown fires off the snap and blocks down on Hargrave, driving him five yards backwards. Credit to Hargrave for not quitting on the play and spinning back inside to assist on the tackle, but by that point the running back had already picked up at least five yards. Brown then emphatically celebrates the play at the end by flexing his strength to the sideline.
That type of power in the run game would certainly be a welcome addition in Washington. Being able to move defenders off the ball is critical for teams that want to use gap scheme runs, which suits a running back like Brian Robinson perfectly. However, while Brown offers a lot of power, he does lack some athleticism in terms of quickness. Quite often when the Chiefs ran a zone scheme run, or something that required him to move laterally, Brown offered very little.
Here we see the Chiefs running a pin-pull scheme to the right side of the offensive line, leaving Brown on the back side of the play. If you focus purely on Brown throughout the clip, you’ll notice how he never actually manages to block anyone. A more mobile tackle would look to take over the left guard’s block on the defensive tackle, allowing the guard to perhaps peel off and work up to the second level, but because Brown can’t make up the ground and reach the defensive tackle, the guard is forced to stay in and maintain his block, allowing the linebacker to roam freely.
Now it’s worth pointing out that the Chiefs still picked up a nice four or five yard gain on the play, even without Brown blocking anyone. Bieniemy obviously will know Brown’s limitations and scheme around them as the Chiefs were able to do last year, but the play does show that there are some limitations in terms of lateral movement with Brown, which need to be factored in when considering giving him top of the market left tackle money.
That size and power with athletic limitations translates to pass protection for Brown as well. The Chiefs run a lot of quick game concepts that require the ball to come out early and in that situation, Brown is a strong left tackle. It’s very difficult for an edge rusher to get around the edge and get to the quarterback when the ball is coming out quickly, so they have to try and go through Brown, but it’s very hard to go through a 6-foot-8, 340 pound man.
On this play, Brown works against Eagles edge rusher Josh Sweat. Sweat is a very athletic rusher that can threaten the edge, but when a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes is processing things quickly and getting the ball out on time, it’s very difficult to just run around the edge. Off the snap, Sweat looks to attack the outside, but the Chiefs smartly have a running back release that way to get in the way of any real speed rush around the outside. That forces Sweat to reconsider things, which buys time for Brown to get his hands on him.
Brown strikes with his outside hand to the outside shoulder of the defender and follows it up with his inside hand on the inside shoulder. This cuts off Sweat’s rush outside completely and forces him to try and convert from speed to power. But it’s extremely difficult to overpower a man of Brown’s size, and Brown simply resets his outside hand on the chest of the defender and locks him down for the rest of the play.
As long as the ball is coming out relatively quickly and on time, Brown is a very reliable left tackle option. He has the strength to absorb and dominate any rusher that looks to convert speed to power and he’s very capable with his hands too.
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