5 questions with Hogs Haven: Old men, pining for Abdul Carter, more

Eboracum: The main thing I want to see is for OC Kliff Kingsbury to expand the offense (last year he ran a very college-style offense to make things easier for his rookie QB) and for Jayden to execute a more diverse and pro-style set of plays. I also want to see Jayden working from the pocket more rather than breaking the pocket, which I’m hoping he’ll be able to do thanks to our upgraded OL. In terms of his technical ability as a QB though, there aren’t any glaring weaknesses for him to fix. He spent the offseason refining his footwork and adding some muscle to increase his durability, so that should help, but he had good footwork and durability last year too.

Eboracum: I’m not really worried about the age of our roster. GM Adam Peters had to completely re-make the roster when he took over and there was only so much he could do in one or two offseasons, so he’s filled out much of the roster with mid-tier veterans on short contracts. The main thing I would normally worry about with older players is that we’d keep them after they fall off a performance cliff or that they would be more injury prone. We’ve avoided the former by signing them to short (mostly 1-year) contracts and we’ve avoided the latter by having an extremely effective and tailored body maintenance plan for each player that HC Dan Quinn has been known for ever since he coached in Atlanta.

That’s not to say I’m not worried about some sort of regression though. The regression I’m more worried about is our conversion rate on 4th down. On average, NFL teams convert about 50% of attempts on 4th down. During the 2024 regular season, the Commanders converted on 20 of 23 4th down attempts, which is a staggering 87% conversion rate (the highest of any team with at least 15 attempts in the Super Bowl era). I fully expect that conversion rate to regress, so we need to be better on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd down to get into fewer 4th down situations.

Eboracum: On offense, look for both young RBs Jacory Crosky-Merritt (he goes by Bill Merritt) and Chris Rodriguez Jr. Bill is a 7th-round rookie who fell in the draft due to an eligibility issue that forced him to sit most of his final season of college football, but his talent level is much higher than a typical 7th-round pick. C-Rod was a 6th-round pick in the 2023 draft who primarily served as a short-yardage specialist in the previous two seasons, but spent the offseason dropping weight and improving his speed and has looked far more explosive this preseason. I expect them to form a pretty even committee along with Austin Ekeler, who is primarily used on 3rd downs.

On defense, look for CB Trey Amos. He was our 2nd-round pick in this year’s draft and the reports of his play out of training camp have been glowing. He looked great in limited preseason action too, so we’re hoping that if Marshon Lattimore is back to form, the CB trio of Amos, Lattimore, and Sainristil (in the slot) should create a much stronger secondary than we had last year.

Eboracum: For the most part, our offensive starters have been healthy so far. The main exceptions are LG Brandon Coleman (who missed much of training camp with an injury, but played in preseason week 3 and is expected to start week 1) and RG Sam Cosmi (who is recovering from tearing his ACL in the playoffs). Terry’s holdout and contract drama has prevented him from practicing for most of camp, but he practiced plenty with Jayden last year and I think they will still retain that chemistry. The thing I’m more worried about is simply that by all accounts, the Commanders ran pretty light practices for most of training camp and the preseason in order to keep people healthy. I wouldn’t be surprised if we are still shaking off some rust in the first couple of weeks and look out of sorts. That’s what happened last year and we attributed it to a rookie QB and new coaching staff, but it may just be a consequence of how Dan Quinn runs his training camp, we’ll see.

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