SkinsNatsFan

The first leak from the team? Cookie Monster has been hired by the Commanders' new team dietitian Samantha Hawkins. He's already in attendance at OrthoVirginia Training Center at Commanders Park and is obviously all in on Jayden Daniels. He's trimmed down to a similar physique and once Daniels is drafted, will work directly with him on the proper NFL cookie eating techniques. The two will meet on Monday April 15 during Daniels' prospect visit with the team. A team spokesman has confirmed the hire, but stated that the they have not made a decision on their draft pick, and that they are continuing their hard work and thorough process. First reported by @MuppetNewsman.

"We've heard nothing from the team, no one has. We're hearing that it's going to be Daniels"

Is he hiding a freaky elbow under long sleeves too?

Ah, so that's really what those hugs are all about.

Unofficial Depth Chart - March 28, 2024 shows a bit of that story so far ... https://www.commanders.com/team/depth-chart Offense Offense Position First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth WR Terry McLaurin Dyami Brown LT LG Chris Paul C RG Sam Cosmi RT Andrew Wylie Trent Scott TE John Bates Cole Turner WR Dyami Brown Jamison Crowder WR Jahan Dotson Mitchell Tinsley QB RB Brian Robinson Jr. Chris Rodriguez Jr. FB Defense Defense Position First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth DE Andre Jones Jr. DT Daron Payne John Ridgeway III DT Jonathan Allen Efe Obada DE KJ Henry OLB MLB Jamin Davis CB Quan Martin CB Benjamin St-Juste Christian Holmes Tariq Castro-Fields CB Emmanuel Forbes Jr. SS FS Percy Butler Quan Martin Special Teams Special Teams Position First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth P Tress Way K H Tress Way LS KR PR Jamison Crowder Jahan Dotson

I agree. It's obviously just a bad fake or adjustment. The jokes about it work, but attempts at actually analyzing it as if it's real are surprising.

Definitely. He set up all options with that. Recover, move forward with family first, community support work, see where he is physically regarding a return to playing, and showed he can be an insightful, informative media type.

That was great. A must watch from start to finish, once he gets to Leno.

https://www.nfl.com/news/new-kickoff-format-ban-on-hip-drop-tackle-among-10-rule-proposals-to-be-heard-at-annual-league-meeting The NFL on Wednesday announced its final 2024 playing rule, bylaw and resolution proposals to be voted on at next week's Annual League Meeting, which takes place March 24-27. ... Proposed for one year only, the new kickoff rules would feature new alignments for the both the kicking and receiving units. A proposed "landing zone," the area between the receiving team's goal line and its 20-yard line, would prompt action off the kickoff if the ball were to land there. Kickoffs would remain at the 35-yard line but the remaining 10 players of the kicking unit would line up at the opposing team's 40-yard line. The receiving team would line up with at least seven players in the "set up zone," a five-yard area between their own 35- and 30-yard lines, and a maximum of two returners are permitted to line up in the landing zone. Once the ball is kicked off, the kicker cannot cross the 50-yard line until ball touches the ground or player in landing zone or end zone, and the 10 kicking team players cannot move until the ball hits the ground or player in the landing zone or the end zone. The receiving team players in the set up zone also cannot move until the kick has hit the ground or a player in the landing zone or the end zone, but the returner(s) may move at any time prior to or during the kickoff. Kickoff scenarios under the committee's proposal would have the following rules: Kickoffs that hit the landing zone must be returned. Kickoffs that hit the landing zone and then go into the end zone must be returned or downed by the receiving team. If downed, the receiving team would get the ball at its own 20-yard line. Kickoffs that go into the end zone and stay inbounds that are downed would give the receiving team the ball at their own 35-yard line. Kickoffs that go out of the back of the end zone (in the air or bounces) would also be a touchback at the receiving team's 35-yard line. Kickoffs short of the landing zone would be treated like a kickoff out of bounds and the receiving team would get the ball at its own 40-yard line. Set up and landing zones will not change with any penalties that carry over to kickoffs, nor will the alignment of the 10 kickoff team players and all the receiving team players -- only the spot of the kick would move. Penalties on scoring plays will not carry over and be taken on the point after attempt. Onside kicks will also be played out with the new set up and landing zones under the proposal from the competition committee. The trailing team has the opportunity to declare an onside kick to the officials from the fourth quarter on. Current onside kick rules apply, and if the ball goes beyond the set up zone untouched, the kicking team would be penalized and the returning team's drive would start at the 20-yard line. The NFL added that the special teams working group will continue to work with the officiating department to examine any necessary approved rulings and/or additional language that may be necessary to support this new kickoff rule if passed. This language would be vetted with the clubs, circulated for comment to all the clubs, and finalized by May.

Yeah, we really don't know. Prior to Quinn's statement in his press conference there had been no news. His statement, “I think he’s an excellent coach. I had a chance to visit with him today. We’ll continue that dialogue, but we’re not going to work together here” was the first and only that we heard. The assumption has been that they offered him nothing, but it is just an assumption. I hated the play calling. He seemed to be doing everything in his power to break a young QB. But they may have tried to find a place for him on the new offense where they felt he'd be a positive, and that more than likely would have been a huge step down that he was not interested in doing. There's a huge group on this new staff who seem to have enthusiastically accepted positions which are lower than they had achieved in the past. But they were coming to a new team with a unique situation. He would have been stepping down on the same team and I can see how that would not have been the best move for his career and ego at this point. I was disappointed and then angry about the offense under Bieniemy, but that doesn't mean he and Quinn didn't discuss the possibility of a new role for him on this team. And a less than enthusiastic response during that conversation would probably have ended up with both sides deciding he should move on.

No idea. Just dry humor. Sometimes it hits, sometimes it misses

This of course has been proven to be a valuable key, not only with the reference above, but as a QB evaluation tool. Hopefully none of the three skip the hand size measurement at the combine. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for the results. It was a stroke of pure genius for the Bengals to make sure Burrow's backup had the same size hands, so they didn't have to modify the offense when he had to come in.

That depends on what I ate. But the bidet cleans it all up regardless.

It is such an interesting situation currently. Hopefully Kingsbury has a similar plan as Joe Whitt, Jr. Start with a solid foundation, and build the offense as a group. “We have a base structure of what we want to do... So what we're going to do, and that's another reason why we brought coaches from different schemes and we were very strategic from where we brought these coaches from, because we're going to build the Commanders defense." Both sides of the ball are building their schemes with very varied backgrounds, and without the benefit of having very many specific players to build with them in mind. They're identifying who on the current roster are their foundational pieces, and defining the player types that they want brought in at each position. They know full well that FA and the draft, based on their roster evaluation, should redefine their foundational pieces to a degree in a couple of months. Roster turnover is a given for each team every year, but building new schemes, and following that up with tailoring your plans for a potentially large number of new specific pieces sounds daunting. For the offensive staff, this has to be so much more challenging right now. Creating an offense with a starting QB to be named later, leaves out an extremely significant focus. There's obviously a ton they can and will do, probably including coming up with more specific plans for each of the QB possibilities, but your starting QB is such a huge focus. Waiting months for that to solidify makes it tough. If there were ever a time to be a fly on the wall for me, it would be now, and for the next few months, listening to the offensive coaching staff create and modify their new offense. And then especially right after they get their QB, when they can then immediately focus on his specific traits and strengths.

Real person, real talent, real value. Not a joke. Another home run hire actually. https://www.nfl.com/news/next-woman-up-sarah-hogan-assistant-director-of-coaching-operations-falcons

Yep. I'd guess they want to give it their full attention and go through a "thorough process", to borrow their words, when the time comes. That's not possible yet.

And in all honesty, even if they had come up with something good, as far fetched an idea as that may be, I'm pretty sure we would have hated it anyway. Fresh start everywhere!

Long term that's a good trade off. I'm glad they didn't throw together whatever they could before they left. The team will now have a new stadium created by a competent group of people. Much better than being stuck for years with whatever the previous fools would have come up with.

https://www.nfl.com/news/next-woman-up-sarah-hogan-assistant-director-of-coaching-operations-falcons Next Woman Up: Sarah Hogan, Assistant Director of Coaching Operations for the Atlanta Falcons Published: Jun 06, 2022 at 01:13 PM How did you get your start in a career in football? My start is a little unique. My dad, Greg Gigantino, is a college football coach, so right off the bat, I had a natural way of interacting with players and coaches because I grew up around them. My true start was in college at James Madison University. I started working in the football office, volunteering for four years, and it felt natural for me to be around the team and help them. Then I was fortunate that the college where my dad coached at the time, Hofstra, is where the New York Jets had training camp. I interned with the Jets for a few summers. I worked for the scouting department, and I actually came away from that internship wanting to work in community relations. I went to school to get my masters in campus recreation before realizing I wanted to work in athletics. I went to the University of Maryland and that was where I actually discovered the position of director of football operations. After that, I had the opportunity to get my foot in the door at Northeastern with my first full-time position. What did your first full-time job in football operations entail and how did you work your way to the Falcons? That initial position was the administrative assistant for the football team at Northeastern. At the time, they had the defensive coordinator doing team travel and another guy doing road meals. The things they had coaches doing were ridiculous, so it made sense for me to do all of the background stuff so they could focus on coaching and recruiting. My first year I really learned how to do everything. Then it was all on me. I scheduled recruiting weekends and trips and even some marketing. I wanted to get familiarized with everything in the athletic department. Northeastern cut the football program in 2009 and then I got the DFO job at Georgia State University. Then I came to the Falcons after five years through a family connection, then head coach Dan Quinn. I started in the scouting department in Atlanta, so a lot of the stuff I had done in college transferred over because I was doing a ton of the travel for the scouts, assistant general manager, setting up pro day visits and working with the schools. It was a great first job in the NFL because I learned a ton about how the organization worked. In January 2016, Coach Quinn asked me if I wanted to help with head coach operations because his assistant left. So I directly supported him and my role expanded. I helped wherever I could. That role is way different than it is now because I really wanted to take a lot of things off the coaches' plate so they could focus on football. So, essentially, you built your role to what it is in the Falcons organization today? I did. The person who was here before me worked a more standard 9-5 job Monday through Friday. When I came in, I was like, "What's my role on game day because I'm not not working?" I created the coordinator of head coach operations title because I wanted it to be more than the executive assistant to the head coach. I wanted to do that job, of course, but not just that job. What was the transition from Dan Quinn to Arthur Smith like? It was super interesting because the entire staff was brand new, even the director of coaching operations, Brian Griffin. It was a really big learning curve. With Coach Smith being a first-time head coach, I was able to help a lot because I had been through that situation with Coach Quinn for six years. There was so much I could bring to the table, and I was able to step up to help him and the staff navigate everything.

It looks like he was also on Detroit's roster/practice squad from Aug 2019 through Aug 2022, and their practice squad all last year. I'd guess he has a good grasp of that offense as well.

And if he's allowed to make that decision