Craig Hoffman went out to see the Washington Commanders practice in their second week of Organized Team Activities (OTAs) and he had some takeaways about the new-look offense under new OC Eric Bieniemy that should excite even the most cynical 'Manders fan.
"Here's the biggest thing I noticed today from OTAs," Hoffman said Wednesday on The Team 980, "Eric Bieniemy is running a grown-up, big boy 2023 offense. And I, for one, love it."
Hoffman said the Commanders started practice on Wendesday with several different players – not just Sam Howell and Jacoby Brissett – taking snaps and running zone-reads. Those players incldued wide receivers Curtis Samuel, Terry McLaurin and Jahan Dotson and running back Antonio Gibson.
This is just one drill in late May to practice ballhandling, but to Hoffman, the point is, "In the spring, you are installing the fundamentals of what your offense and defense will be... On offense you are installing your base pass concepts, your base run concepts. And what Eric Bienemy says is 'this is all our base.' There is no shortage of volume of plays for these Commanders players to learn."
Hoffman added that this increased volume in base concepts will open up a whole new set of problems for defenses to have to deal with.
"They are going to have to deal with Curtis Samuel lining up all over the place, but also Jahan Dotson, but also Antonio Gibson, but also Terry McLaurin. 'And oh my god they've got three tight ends in the game.' 'Oh god they broke the huddle with three tight ends and maybe even two running backs, they're in a spread formation,'" Hoffman said.
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This was a possiblity that many around the Commanders thought the team could do on offense based on the personnel they had last season, but didn't see because Scott Turner thought of it more as the ability to run trick plays and "Bienemy sees that as the base fundamentals of how offense should be run in the 2023 NFL and count me on Team Bienemy on this one."
Hoffman added that Bieniemy's near-obsessive attenton to detail was on full display Wednesday based upon the number of times the offense ran plays again or were called back to the line of scrimmage or huddle.
At one point Bieniemy said, "Details, guys. The little things. This is the [explative] that's gonna win us games."
In the quarterback battle, it wasn't all positive for everybody, according to Hoffman: "Sam Howell didn't have a particularly good day. Threw a lot of balls into traffic. That's gonna have to get cleaned up. He's learning a new offense it's his fourth OTA practice as QB1, fine."
"Jacoby Brissett, meanwhile, I thought had a very good day," Hoffman added. "His ball placement, Ron [Rivera] mentioned it in the presser, he said ball placement is what separates Jacoby and he was phenomenal in that regard today. It's one day, things happen. It's not me saying Jacoby should be the starter over Sam by any stretch of the imagination."
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