On Tuesday afternoon, Nick Akridge revealed that the Commanders’ top-rated players by PFF were Kendall Fuller (overall) and Sam Cosmi (top offense, second overall) – perhaps encapsulating why the team was 4-13.
The overhaul is going to start with whomever is hired as the GM and then the head coach, and when it comes to the latter, fellow PFF’er Brad Spielberger is on team offensive head coach for a very specific reason.
“Look what just happened with Mike Vrabel in Tennessee; I think he is a Top 10, maybe Top 5 head coach in the NFL, and he lost Matt LaFleur and then Arthur Smith (as offensive coordinators), and then had to go to his third option in Tim Kelly, a guy who'd been in Houston for a while but didn't do a whole lot, and now Vrabel is out of a job,” Spielberger said. “This is the inherent risk we always talk about where if you have the defensive head coach, and this is not to say they shouldn't be on your list – but if you have an OC that works for the young quarterback, and it goes well, that guy is gone, and there's not continuity and stability for the offense. In today's NFL, offense wins games.”
It's not black and white if you have the right organizational structure in Spielberger’s mind, but if all things are equal, ‘you lean offense.’
When it comes to that, the Commanders pick at No. 2, and after Spielberger explained why he would draft a QB at No. 1 if he were the Bears – and, ostensibly, why the Commanders shouldn’t be the ones to trade for Fields – he’s hoping that it’s Ben Johnson
“I think Johnson makes all the sense in the world; he’s a guy that is waiting for a good opportunity – he essentially turned down Carolina last year – to go to the right spot, and it’s not just because of the hype,” Spielberger said. “Look at the film, on passing plays where the QB earns a zero grade, meaning they basically just do their job, the Lions have the highest yards per pass in the NFL over the last two years. It's really just saying when the offense is just going to do what is designed by the play caller, they're getting the most success out of it – and their concepts are beautiful.”
So who would he ideally want to be Johnson’s QB?
“I think honestly it's a flavor thing. I think both guys are really high-level Tier 1 prospects, and a lot of the narratives about both of them are frankly unfounded,” Spielberger said of Caleb Williams and Drake Maye.
“You’ll hear a lot about Williams, the local kid, how he can’t operate inside of structure, but that’s not true. Maye, probably the livest arm of the class, who throws absolute javelins, and probably has a little Josh Allen in him. Long answer short, I think both guys are Top 5 prospects of the last five years.”
Take a listen to Spielberger’s entire segment above, which also touches on what film saw as some of the issues with Eric Bieniemy’s offense, revisionist history of Stroud vs. Young, and more!
