WR Noah Brown ready for important role in Commanders offense, if healthy

Reviewing Noah Brown's 2024 season and looking ahead to his role in 2025

During the last week of OTAs, the Commanders suffered an unfortunate injury to wide receiver Noah Brown. Brown was reportedly carted off the practice field but there’s been no update regarding the injury. Being carted off the field led to a lot of speculation about who might replace Brown if he is seriously injured, but reports suggest the injury may not actually be that serious due to the lack of an update.

That’s obviously good news for Brown and the Commanders if the injury isn’t serious, but the situation prompted me to think about Brown and his role within the offense. When considering who might replace him, I rewatched some of his film from last year to see just where he was successful and his role within the offense, at first to see how they might go about trying to replace him if injured. But when reports suggested the injury might not be serious, I came to appreciate just how important Brown could be this season.

It’s easy to forget that Brown was a very late addition to the team last year. He was with the Texans through their training camp and preseason last year before being waived as part of roster cut downs. The Commanders picked him up a few days later and ended up one of the Commanders most productive receivers despite getting hurt and missing a good chunk of the season. He had 35 catches for 453 yards and an unforgettable walk off touchdown against the Bears on the miracle hail mary play. He did all that despite not being with the team throughout the offseason and having to play catch up both in terms of learning the offense and building a connection with Jayden Daniels.

That connection with Daniels came quickly though, much quicker than expected. One of the primary reasons for that was Brown’s route running. He’s not a dynamic receiver in terms of his athleticism or explosiveness, but he is a veteran that understands how to run his routes to attack leverage and set up defenders.

This play against the Giants is a good example of Brown’s route running ability. Brown initially aligns in a stacked set with Terry McLaurin to the right of the formation. Just before the snap, he motions outside McLaurin in what’s known as an exit motion, something that has become very popular around the league over the last few years. The Commanders are running a nice concept here. It’s designed to look like a dagger concept, where McLaurin runs a vertical clearing route over the middle of the field to vacate space for Brown to run a deep dig into that vacated space. However, instead of running a dagger, which they run multiple times a game, the Commanders break a tendency. McLaurin works over the middle and then sits down while Brown fakes the break inside and instead breaks outside towards the sideline.

Focusing more on Brown’s route, we can see the little details that help make this route successful. First, he angles his route outside towards the numbers, getting width which forces the outside corner wider to maintain outside leverage. Once he gets to the numbers, Brown adjusts his path to get more vertical. This gets the corner thinking it’s either an in-breaking route or a vertical route. The corner checks inside and can see McLaurin working across the middle, so he likely thinks this is a dagger concept. He stays on top of the route but is ready to break inside, anticipating the break inside. Brown gives a little stick to the inside at the top of his route, just enough to sell the fake before sharply cutting off his route and breaking outside.

This leaves the corner believing he’s breaking inside and you can see the separation that creates. Brown is three or four yards outside the numbers before the cornerback has even turned towards the sideline. He makes the catch on the sideline without the corner being within five yards of him.

That veteran route running ability was clearly something that clicked with quarterback Jayden Daniels in his rookie year. Daniels had a lot of success anticipating throws to veteran receivers that he trusted to run good routes and be at the right spot, at the right time for the ball to arrive. McLaurin obviously excelled at this, as did tight end Zach Ertz. But Noah Brown was just as important in this aspect.

Here’s a very basic example of the type of timing I’m talking about. Brown is isolated to the right of the formation here running an out route against the Ravens in the two-minute drill before the half. This type of route is all about timing. He has to get to the right spot at the exact right time for Daniels to trust him with the throw. Brown works directly vertical for six steps before breaking outside. Those are two very important details. Working vertically at the snap means he doesn’t tip off his intention to the cornerback in coverage, who is playing with outside leverage. If he breaks too early or leans outside, he gives the corner a chance to break outside and take away the throw. By working vertically, he is able to close the gap between himself and the corner and keep the corner in his current position, worried about the threat of a deeper route.

The six steps is also a very important factor. You might be thinking “what’s the difference between him taking six steps and if he had taken five or seven steps, surely one step either way doesn’t matter?”. Well, it does matter. Watch the play again with a focus on the timing between Daniels and Brown. Daniels drop syncs up perfectly with Brown’s route. He catches the ball, takes a three-step drop and by the time his back foot hits the ground at the of the drop, Brown’s six step his the ground as he starts to break outside. This timing is incredibly important on a play like this, as you can see from how the cornerback reacts. The corner does well to get out of the break and try and close on the pass, but because Daniels and Brown were so synced up, he can’t prevent the pass from being completed. The placement from Daniels was excellent and Brown deserves a ton of credit for making the diving effort to pull in the catch, but it all comes down to the timing between them. When the timing syncs up that well, the corner can do little to stop the play.

Here’s another example.

This time we have a play-action pass with Brown running a deep curl route. Because there’s a play-action fake, the route has to be run slightly deeper than a normal curl route in order for things to time up nicely. But if you focus on the timing like we did on the last play, you can see how Daniels gets to the top of his drop at the same time the Brown is getting to the top of his route. As Brown breaks out of the route, Daniels delivers the ball, maximizing the separation created by the route. The cornerback in coverage doesn’t do a bad job, but he takes one extra step out of the break to react to Brown’s route, which is all that is needed for the catch to be completed when the timing is on point. Brown secures the pass just before the defender arrives and the Commanders get a nice chunk of yards.

These types of plays are the bread and butter of an offense. Being able to hit these rhythm and timing routes routinely helps keep an offense on track and ahead of the chains, which is something the Commanders did so well last year. Noah Brown was a big part of that due to his connection with Daniels, who clearly trusted the veteran receiver in those spots. It is somewhat surprising that Brown was able to forge such a connection and trust with Daniels so quickly. Those rhythm and timing routes typically take a lot of time and reps to perfect and Brown didn’t arrive in Washington until after the preseason. But clearly the pair put in plenty of work together to get caught up and made up for lost time. The connection showed even on plays where the timing was slightly disrupted.