Commanders’ controversial offensive coordinator hire comes with a question that Washington can’t answer yet
The Commanders promoted David Blough, and the hire comes with a lot of unknowns despite him being an in-house coach. We will have to find out what offense he will run, but his past might tell the story.
The Washington Commanders needed to make a change, and that’s exactly what head coach Dan Quinn did after the season by moving on from offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury.
Everyone expected a long, thought-out hiring process, with this being a hire that Quinn can’t mess up, or he will be out the door next season. Candidates like Mike McDaniel and many others were linked to the Commanders to work with Jayden Daniels, but Quinn had other ideas.
After other teams began reaching out to Commanders QB coach David Blough for their own offensive coordinator openings, Quinn decided to end the search and promote Blough himself. It’s a move that comes with a lot of risks, but also a lot of questions that won’t be answered for a while.
What kind of offense will David Blough run?
Blough has never run his own offense or even called plays before, so this will be the 30-year-old coach’s first time at the helm. He has had input on offenses as a player and an assistant coach, however. The biggest question on everyone’s mind is what offense will Blough call since he’s never done it before? We don’t know, but we can guess what he will lean toward based on his past and the Commanders’ plans.
We already know there was a disconnect between Kingsbury’s offense and what the Commanders wanted to do, so obviously, Blough won’t just roll out the same offense. I believe he will take parts of Kingsbury’s offense, such as the occasional up-tempo drives, but expect more of the offense he played in from 2019 to 2023.
He played for the Detroit Lions for four years under Darrell Bevell, Dan Campbell, and Ben Johnson, and it’s the offense he knows best; it’s still very effective today. Blough then went to the Minnesota Vikings in 2023 and played in the same offensive system under Kevin O’Connell for a short time before going to the Arizona Cardinals and then back with the Lions in 2023. It also fits the Commanders’ plan to go under center more often, use play-action, and establish a run game that complements Daniels’ passing.
Campbell also pushed to bring in Blough to interview for their open offensive coordinator job last week, a hire they can’t get wrong either, after missing the playoffs and firing their own coordinator.
That is good evidence he would be more than comfortable running the Lions’ offensive system, and likely the route he will take as the Commanders’ offensive coordinator next season. If Campbell has belief in him, then so should you.
What will change the most for the Commanders’ offense?
I mentioned earlier what the Commanders could do more often if Blough ran the Campbell/Johnson-type offense, which would be very different from Kingsbury’s.
Kingsbury runs a very college-type offense in the NFL, where quarterbacks rarely go under center, just like in college. Today’s NFL requires quarterbacks to go under center and use play-action passing to integrate the run game into it and stress opposing defenses.
The NFL’s better passing teams went under center a lot, while struggling offenses didn’t as much this season. The number of times the Commanders went under center this season compared to the Lions, Bears, and Vikings is astronomically different.
The Commanders were last in the NFL with only 112 plays under center, while the Lions, Bears, and Vikings were all in the top-10 with more than 400 snaps under center for each team. The Commanders passed the ball only 16 times under center all season, and ran it the other 96 times, so teams knew what was coming.
Play-action will be a big part of the offense moving forward, as it should be, and the offense should also use motions and shifts to create number mismatches. Expect a balanced run game with outside zone runs and gap blocking schemes like duo mixed in as well.
We saw Caleb Williams run that offense with Johnson this season, so I reached out to A to Z Sports Chicago writer Kole Noble to ask how the offense helped Williams in his second year and what Daniels might have to play in next season.
“It’s no secret that Ben Johnson’s offensive scheme is built on having a dominating front and establishing the run,” Noble said. “It sounds cliché, but it’s the truth. What Johnson built in Detroit and brought to Chicago starts with the run game, particularly the outside zone with the interior offensive lineman pulling and clearing the way out in space. Ideally, with a two-back rotation to keep the operation fresh for all 60 minutes.
“Everything in the passing game is built upon that with the quarterback under center and a large dose of play-action concepts. This, paired with a lot of two and three TE sets and pre-snap movement, creates a lot of run/pass conflicts for opposing defenses. The passing game itself is structured to prioritize yards after the catch, so it’s a lot of crossing routes and short throws as the primary reads and extremely completion-driven for the QB.
“With Caleb Williams, it took some time to get him comfortable in this scheme after moving him back under center and making sure he’s working through the proper progressions. Over time, Johnson started leaning into Williams’ dual-threat ability as well, mixing in more boots and rollouts off the play-action fakes with crossing routes opening up in front of him. It’s a highly advanced scheme, and that requires all 11 players to be on the details.
“Because of that, it’s easy to see the offense beat itself, either by not being in the proper location on passing routes or via pre-snap penalties, two issues the Bears continue to struggle with. There’s one other mantra that Johnson lives by when it comes to his pass catchers: “No block, no rock.” – Kole Noble, A to Z Sports Chicago
We won’t know exactly which offense Blough will run until the Summer, but my strong guess is that he will run the one he knows best, having played it for so long. Plus, it has been successful across the league. It will be a big change for Daniels, as it was for Williams, but it’ll be an offense that helps Daniels protect himself, while bringing out his strengths more with his legs and his arm.
This also changes plans for the offseason, including which players will fit the new offense and what kind of players and roles this team still needs. That’s a series I can’t wait to write about in the near future as I continue to break down the offense on film and how the Commanders’ current roster translates to Blough’s potential scheme.
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