Where does TE Ben Sinnott stand entering his second year?

Breaking down TE Ben Sinnott's rookie season and where he stands entering his second year

Commanders tight end Ben Sinnott didn’t necessarily have the rookie year many expected from the 2024 second round pick. Sinnott managed just five catches for 28 yards and a touchdown during the regular season last year and only had one more catch in the playoffs, which came on a fake punt against the Eagles. That’s obviously quite a disappointing return for a second round pick, which has caused many fans to already write him off as a bust. That is premature, so I thought today I could review Sinnott’s rookie season, look at his role within the offense and perhaps reshape how he’s viewed a little bit.

The first thing to note with Sinnott is that while he only had five catches during the regular season, he still had an impact on the team in other ways. As a blocker, he quickly became an important part of the run game. Now, his run blocking as a traditional inline tight end still requires plenty of work, and the Commanders have John Bates in front of him anyway, who is one of the better blocking tight ends in the league. But Sinnott was used as a second tight end and fullback hybrid, which has a functional role within this offense. He performed that role well throughout the season.

This play comes from the Commanders fourth game of the season against the Arizona Cardinals. Even as early as then, Sinnott was having a solid impact as a blocker. He lines up to the left of the formation outside Bates as the second tight end. Typically in this sort of look, Sinnott would be required to block the edge defender, which is not his strength as of now. So instead, the Commanders call a sweep scheme, pulling both guards to the edge. For Sinnott, this means he can fake blocking the edge just for a moment to create some doubt in the defenders mind before then looping around him to work up to the second level.

As Sinnott loops around the defender, the pulling guards work across and pick him up. Sinnott then works up to the second level where he meets a smaller defensive back in space. Obviously he has a size advantage, but you will often see bigger offensive lineman struggle in this situation because those smaller defensive backs can use the space and their athleticism to run around the block. Sinnott provides the perfect middle ground of big enough to have a significant size advantage to make the block, but still athletic enough to avoid the defender escaping him. You can see the defender does his best to try and sneak past him to the outside, but Sinnott stays engaged with the block and shoves him further outside towards the sideline, providing a lane for the running back to cut behind him and burst down the sideline for a long touchdown.

These types of blocks in space are an important part of the Commanders offense, especially given their quarterback. Jayden Daniels has terrific athleticism and adds a lot to the run game as a read-option threat. However, that wouldn’t work anywhere near as well without a blocker like Sinnott that has the size and athleticism to arc around defenders and block in space. Just look at Daniels’ touchdown run against the Cowboys for an example.

Here we see the Commanders line up in a pistol formation with running back Austin Ekeler behind Daniels and Ben Sinnott next to Daniels as a fullback. This is a fairly standard read-option run scheme, with the Commanders leaving the defensive end unblocked for Daniels to read. If the end holds his position, Daniels can hand the ball off inside to Ekeler with the bonus of not having to block the defensive end. If the end crashes down inside on the run, Daniels can pull the ball and keep it himself on a run to the edge. The end does step down inside on the run, so Daniels pulls the ball and keeps it.

We all know this scheme by now, it’s one that Robert Griffin III made famous in the NFL during his rookie year back in 2012. The NFL has built in a typical way of trying to stop it, known as the scrape exchange. You can see that here. When a team shows a read-option run, the defense teaches the defensive ends to crash down inside to stop the run inside and not worry about the quarterback. Instead, the linebacker and perhaps even a defensive back from the secondary will work down and scrape to the edge to replace the defensive end. The Cowboys attempt to do that here, but John Bates blocks inside on the linebacker attempting to scrape to the edge, while Ben Sinnott executes what’s known as an arc block.

Sinnott starts as a fullback and looks like he’s just sifting back across the line to block the defensive end. He approaches the defender but then arcs around him, leaving him unblocked before working to the second level. Once there, Sinnott shows off that size and athleticism again. He is able to engage with the defensive back in space without being worked around easily, but also has the size and strength to run him over. That clears the path for Daniels to keep the ball and run to the edge. Daniels uses that path and outruns the deep safety to the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.

Those arc blocks and the ability to block in space are crucial parts of the quarterback run game that the Commanders relied upon a lot last year. Without someone like Sinnott to execute them, Daniels wouldn’t have that extra layer of protection when keeping the ball on read-option runs. We saw Robert Griffin III take some big hits on those runs back in 2012, but Jayden Daniels was hardly touched unless he made the decision to cut back inside himself. That was largely thanks to the likes of Sinnott and Bates executing those arc blocks.

You can see the benefit it has on the offense by how much it stresses defensive ends too. Kliff Kingsbury and his offensive staff did a really nice job last year sequencing their run game and enabling players like Sinnott to create significant stress on edge defenders.

This clip shows a sequence of two plays that happened back-to-back against the Titans last season. On the first play of this clip, we see the Commanders line up in a pistol formation with Jeremy McNichols at running back behind Jayden Daniels. Sinnott aligns as a H-Back just behind the line of scrimmage and between right tackle Cornelius Lucas and fellow tight end John Bates. The Commanders run an inside zone scheme here, with McNichols carrying the ball inside and Sinnott sifting back across the line to kick out the back side edge defender. The hope is that the offensive line can create some movement up front, washing the defensive line to the right side while Sinnott cuts off the back side edge player and creates a lane for the back to cut into. On this occasion, McNichols opts to hit the run to the front side, but that’s not the important part here.

The important point for the first play is to notice how Sinnott sifts back across the line and kicks out the back side edge defender. The defender is initially left unblocked and begins to crash inside on the run, but sees Sinnott coming and so he lowers his shoulder and the pair make contact. Keep that in mind as you watch the second play of the clip. The second play of the clip is the very next play. Pre-snap, everything looks exactly the same. The Commanders are in the pistol with McNichols behind Daniels and Sinnott is in that same H-Back position to the right side. However, this time the Commanders are running a read-option play.

Instead of sifting back across the line to block the back side edge defender, Sinnott sifts back and bluffs him before arcing around him to lead the way for Daniels. Daniels reads the edge defender and has the choice to either hand it off inside or pull the ball and run to the edge. The defensive end spots Sinnott making what he thinks is the same sift block from the same look as the previous play, so he naturally assumes the same block is coming. As a result, he works inside and looks to meet Sinnott further inside to try and blow up the run inside. However, Sinnott suddenly arcs around him and the defender knows he’s in trouble. Daniels is given a clear pull read and he pulls the ball out from McNichols and keeps it himself as he bursts to the edge. Sinnott works around the edge defender and works up to the second level as a lead blocker for Daniels, who sprints down the sideline for a first down.

That two play sequence was a great example of just how difficult it can be as a defensive end to defend the run against a team with a read-option threat. On one play, they’re getting blocked by a tight end, on the next, they’re left completely unblocked and being read by the quarterback. It’s an incredibly tough spot to be in and the Commanders were able to consistently generate that type of stress on defensive ends in large part thanks to the presence of Sinnott. Sure, John Bates performed these blocks too, but having Sinnott around meant Bates could stay more inline and help block the normal run scheme in line while Sinnott accounted for the read-option part of things, helping both aspects of the run game.

Yes he still needs to improve as an inline run blocker to become a truly well-rounded blocking tight end, but Bates is one of the best in the league at that role so Sinnott isn’t needed for it just yet. Despite that, Sinnott’s impact on the offense was felt as both a run blocker and what he enabled the team to do schematically. That alone to me says he’s not a bust. Sure, you could argue that type of player might not have been worth a second round pick and I might agree there, but that’s assuming no development comes from him as a receiving option, which I think is still very possible going forward.

On the topic of him as a receiving option, this was always going to take some time. He came out of college as a very raw route runner, but with the ability to be physical after the catch if you schemed up ways to get him the ball in space on things like crossing routes. What became extremely apparent very early on last season was that Jayden Daniels had a great connection with veteran tight end Zach Ertz. Ertz has long been a very good receiving tight end in the NFL with a good understanding of route running, how to attack leverage and how to find soft spots in zone. Daniels immediately clicked with Ertz, which made Ertz an essential part of the offense as the primary receiving tight end. That meant passing reps for Sinnott were extremely limited.

Instead of splitting out to the slot and running a variety of routes, Sinnott was limited to mostly working to the flats as an afterthought, typically on play-action passes. Don’t get me wrong, he performed important roles within those plays, but it meant we never really got to see him test his development as a route runner.