2024 Rookie camp/OTA/Training camp thread.

[KDawg]

19 minutes ago, redskinss said:

 

Just out of curiosity why not?

 

I thought it was a little surprising but then again our roster is so depleted and we were so bad that it's tough to pick out someone who's underrated. 

 

I guess I should have gone back a few pages and read the thread.

I didn't realize this had already been discussed. 

Because he is so unpopular that he’s bound to at least be slightly better than we give him credit for.

[LetMeSeeYourWarFace21]

11 hours ago, KDawg said:

You ever felt like you were getting ridden at work unnecessarily? And then you make little mistakes you usually don’t because you’re feeling pressure? I know I have at times. Not all the time. But it’s happened to me.

 

 

 

I'm going through this right now at work. ****ing hate my supervisor, praying I land a new job soon. Work life is miserable and I work from home. Woooosah....sorry, this post spoke to my soul, carry on.  

[Skinsinparadise]

19 hours ago, Warhead36 said:

Wylie is mostly average. The problem is when he loses a rep, he loses BAD. Its not like some guys where they lose a rep but still put up a fight. Wylie's losses are awful and often result in just instant pressure because he just straight up whiffs or stumbles or something.

 

Yeah that was my rap when I watched some of his KC games and wrote something up on him last year.  that seemed to follow him here.  When he wins, he wins so clean.  I think that's why PFF likes him.  I don't think its crazy that PFF likes him considering on their type of metrics he should do fine.  The problem with him is when he loses its a straight up loss -- to use a baseball analogy he's not giving up hits, he gives up homeruns and often at the worst moments in games.

 

I am hoping though that the scheme helps him out.  He's a better run blocker than pass blocker.  So hopefully them running the ball like a typical team versus what we did last year like we were Mike Martz's Rams should help him.

Edited May 17 by Skinsinparadise

[Skinsinparadise]

19 hours ago, Going Commando said:

 For someone to be the most underrated player on a roster, they need to be a good player by a broader standard.  To me that's B-Rob for us.  But I do think there is some question about his scheme fit moving forward.  I like his style a lot better for a gap scheme, and there might be a chance we'll run a zone heavy scheme instead because of Peters's history in SF.  We'll see what Kingsbury installs this year.

 

Peters though isn't dictating the offense.  As he said before he caters to the coaches scheme.

 

There was some ex-player who played for Kliff forgetting whom who said that Robinson is the ideal running back for his scheme. 

 

From what I read he does a mix of gap and zone, with an edge toward gap -- counters, duo.  Counter mixed with outside zone to keep teams off balance.

 

They didn't draft a RB, so I am guessing they like this RB room.   

 

https://markbullock.substack.com/p/what-to-expect-from-kliff-kingsbury

 

The Cardinals ran the ball plenty during Kingsbury’s four years and were actually pretty efficient at it too. It certainly helped to have an athletic quarterback like Kyler Murray that could add on to the run game and create issues for the defense from a numbers perspective, but the Caridnals run game was more than just Murray. They deployed a gap scheme rushing attack with some fun twists to change things up. 

 

...This gap scheme style of running will suit Commanders running back Brian Robinson, who mainly ran gap scheme in college at Alabama. In an ideal world, the gap scheme runs would come with the quarterback under center and perhaps Kingsbury makes that adjustment depending on his quarterback in Washington, but in Arizona almost everything was out of the shotgun, which I know will upset some fans. Shotgun runs have been the preference of the previous two coordinators here, but they can be effective if schemed up properly and perhaps using more pistol looks could be a nice compromise. 

[FootballZombie]

13 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

I am hoping though that the scheme helps him out.

 

Yeah, more responsible play diversity will help the entire Oline as a whole. We wont just throw the ball to such a hilarious degree that you allow your opponent to basically disregard the run because they can pretty much guess your not gonna do much of it.

 

Even if we trotted out the exact same linemen, If D's we play lose the ability to basically guess pass/run beforehand, the group would see an increase to performance simply because they won't have to deal w/ pass rushers pinning their ears back on very single down.  

 

On that level, I do have a bit of hope with the holdovers. Not expecting the moon, but "better" is not unreasonable.

[Skinsinparadise]

I got to relisten to this, I could have sworn he said he played Z, not X.  McCaffrey defintely has the size to play X.  His college coach thinks he's better suited to play slot, will see.

 

Quan playing safety versus slot makes sense.  I expected that.  We got so many nickle players now.

 

Davis over Forbes I expected, too.  As Keim has said multiple times, from what he heard the issues with Forbes ran deeper than the scheme and coaching -- technique was sloppy from him among other things.    But hopefully Witt can fix him. 

 

 

 

15 minutes ago, FootballZombie said:

 

Yeah, more responsible play diversity will help the entire Oline as a whole. We wont just throw the ball to such a hilarious degree that you allow your opponent to basically disregard the run because they can pretty much guess your not gonna do much of it.

 

Even if we trotted out the exact same linemen, If D's we play lose the ability to basically guess pass/run beforehand, the group would see an increase to performance simply because they won't have to deal w/ pass rushers pinning their ears back on very single down.  

 

On that level, I do have a bit of hope with the holdovers. Not expecting the moon, but "better" is not unreasonable.

 

Yeah if you are passing like mad, you need some rock star level O lineman.

 

Among all the odd narratives last year one of the oddest to me was the one where Keim said from talking to people in that building they knew the O line wouldn't be hot but they didn't know they'd be passing this much and implied if they knew it would be that pass happy -- that spot would have been more code red for them last off season.

 

My thought listening to that is two fold.

 

A.  It speaks to Rivera's half speed approaches to the off season

 

B.  How dysfunctional is it when you don't even know what your offensive coordinator plans to do and or are surprised by what they do.

 

I'd add to this the narrative that came out last year that the players were annoyed that Ron wasn't more hands on with his assistant coaches in particular Bieniemy and just let them do their thing whatever it was.

 

When the players ranked thier coaches as the 31st best in the league and that was before the season went off the rails -- its telling.  

 

As @MartinC among others like to stress, this was a piss poor coached team.

 

If Rivera didn't come off as well as he does in interviews and look typecast out of a move as to what HC should look like and act like publicly -- as Craig Hoffman said once he comes off like he's acting a part of some football movie about a HC -- if he didn't cultivate that image IMO he'd be up there with Zorn and Spurrier as a clownshow coach.

 

Also, I'll give him props for dealing with alll the mess-dysfunction with class while battling cancer. So as a dude, I elevate him.  But as a coach-GM he was a hot mess IMO. 

 

IMO he ends up as easily the worst defacto GM we had aside from Dan himself.  But otherwise Cerrato, Bruce, Shanny were bad GMs but still did better jobs IMO. And like Spurrier and Zorn he didn't have a winning record.  And heck he had double the time to do it versus them.   He's the only coach here who both inherited a #2 pick and left the next coach with a #2 pick.  Roster worst than he inherited.  And if things keep going on this track, the worst run of #1 picks in 4 years we've had here.

Edited May 17 by Skinsinparadise

[Going Commando]

13 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

Wylie is hot garbage. I do agree that he would probably be better in gap scheme. But there is nothing average about him at all. He was abysmal last season. 

 

This just isn't true.  And we did run mostly gap schemes last year, and actually ran the ball pretty well when we designed to do so.  But as for Wylie, every objective measure has him at average.  Mostly quiet play with a couple of bad losses peppered in each game is what average OT play looks like in the NFL, especially when you're running a ton of shotgun spread where the OL is in a true pass set all game.  Every team racks up pressures from that style of play, including the ones with high end OLs like KC and Detroit. 

 

Wylie and the OL were scapegoated last season because fans had an agenda about defending Howell when he was struggling, and judging from the posts about Wylie in here, that narrative stuck.  So how about reframing the discussion about Wylie now that fans have a new agenda to defend Adam Peters: after overhauling 70% of the roster, do you really think Peters would have left Wylie as one of the very few untouched starters from last year if he was garbage?  Not only is Wylie keeping his job, they didn't even really draft or sign anyone to push him.  He and Cosmi and McLauren and maybe Daron are the only guys on the entire roster for whom that's the case.

 

I think I've actually been more critical of Peters than anyone else here, especially when it comes to the Brandon Coleman pick and the missed opportunities for OLs in the draft.  Yet even I think the decision to keep Wylie as a starter is fine.

[KDawg]

Wylie wasn’t scapegoated.

 

He stunk.

 

Howell, overall, did as well.

 

Interestingly, some of this forum always turn on the people who are no longer here and side with the people who are. If Wiley is gone this year or next, people will return to the “he stunk” narrative and not care what PFF said.

 

This whole convo is wild.

[Going Commando]

1 hour ago, Skinsinparadise said:

Peters though isn't dictating the offense.  As he said before he caters to the coaches scheme.

 

There was some ex-player who played for Kliff forgetting whom who said that Robinson is the ideal running back for his scheme. 

 

From what I read he does a mix of gap and zone, with an edge toward gap -- counters, duo.  Counter mixed with outside zone to keep teams off balance.

 

They didn't draft a RB, so I am guessing they like this RB room.   

 

They should install a gap centric scheme, that's what the personnel dictates.  But Peters has been evaluating for zone systems for half his career, and that will naturally shape the way anyone evaluates players.  He's going to want to bring in players who match the stuff that worked really well for his teams before, which is why I think he liked Sinnott and McCaffrey so much.  I could see the offense drifting to increasing similarity with SF's over time.

 

The other thing is we did sign Ekeler, and it's not very clear what B Rob's role is going to be moving forward.  Is he still going to start?  Ekeler is kind of a big fish if you think last year was just a write off due to injury.  Personally, I think Ekeler is slowing down and that Robinson is a better player than him now, but it's hard to be sure.  Only thing I'm sure about is that Robinson is not a good fit for a SF running game because he's not a bursty and decisive one cut runner.  He's a patient, pick your way up field that's really good at following pulls and running from shotgun.  I do trust Kingsbury to install a scheme that suits him, because I suspect that Kingsbury is going to find out quickly that Robinson is his best weapon outside of Jayden's own dynamic playmaking ability.  Similar to how Peters is bringing in people similar to what worked well for him before, Kingsbury will probably want to create something similar to the Murray/Conner engine he built his offense upon in Arizona.

[Skinsinparadise]

4 minutes ago, Going Commando said:

 

They should install a gap centric scheme, that's what the personnel dictates.  But Peters has been evaluating for zone systems for half his career, and that will naturally shape the way anyone evaluates players.  He's going to want to bring in players who match the stuff that worked really well for his teams before, which is why I think he liked Sinnott and McCaffrey so much.  I could see the offense drifting to increasing similarity with SF's over time.

 

The other thing is we did sign Ekeler, and it's not very clear what B Rob's role is going to be moving forward.  Is he still going to start?  Ekeler is kind of a big fish if you think last year was just a write off due to injury.  Personally, I think Ekeler is slowing down and that Robinson is a better player than him now, but it's hard to be sure.  Only thing I'm sure about is that Robinson is not a good fit for a SF running game because he's not a bursty and decisive one cut runner.  He's a patient, pick your way up field that's really good at following pulls and running from shotgun.  I do trust Kingsbury to install a scheme that suits him, because I suspect that Kingsbury is going to find out quickly that Robinson is his best weapon outside of Jayden's own dynamic playmaking ability.  Similar to how Peters is bringing in people similar to what worked well for him before, Kingsbury will probably want to create something similar to the Murray/Conner engine he built his offense upon in Arizona.

 

Peter's niche supposedly is catering to ANY coach's needs.  Not just SF.  He was a hearlded scout in NE and Denver too.   And Belichick in particular is known for liking specific types. 

 

On defense for example, Quinn seems fixated on oversized safeties-undersized LBs who can play big nickle and can be used around as chess pieces.  And that's exactly what he got.

Coleman ranked better by PFF as a gap player versus zone.  Though you'd think with his athleticism he'd be a better zone player.

 

Sinnott and McCaffrey seems to fit what I hear Kingsbury wants which is receivers who can block and can do it via the slot.

 

From what I heard Robinson is back #1.  Ekeler is the third down back. 

 

 

[Koolblue13]

He brought in Lynn as running game Co, so I think we have an idea of what our running game will look like and Ekeler is not the starter coming out of camp. He's at the age plateau to fall off.

[MartinC]

1 hour ago, Going Commando said:

 

They should install a gap centric scheme, that's what the personnel dictates.  But Peters has been evaluating for zone systems for half his career, and that will naturally shape the way anyone evaluates players.  He's going to want to bring in players who match the stuff that worked really well for his teams before, which is why I think he liked Sinnott and McCaffrey so much.  I could see the offense drifting to increasing similarity with SF's over time.

 

The other thing is we did sign Ekeler, and it's not very clear what B Rob's role is going to be moving forward.  Is he still going to start?  Ekeler is kind of a big fish if you think last year was just a write off due to injury.  Personally, I think Ekeler is slowing down and that Robinson is a better player than him now, but it's hard to be sure.  Only thing I'm sure about is that Robinson is not a good fit for a SF running game because he's not a bursty and decisive one cut runner.  He's a patient, pick your way up field that's really good at following pulls and running from shotgun.  I do trust Kingsbury to install a scheme that suits him, because I suspect that Kingsbury is going to find out quickly that Robinson is his best weapon outside of Jayden's own dynamic playmaking ability.  Similar to how Peters is bringing in people similar to what worked well for him before, Kingsbury will probably want to create something similar to the Murray/Conner engine he built his offense upon in Arizona.

Scheme has to mesh with personnel (and over time visa versa). I agree with you that with the personnel we have we are better suited to a gap/power scheme.

 

We might evolve over time to more zone - but we are not built for it right now. 
 

I think we will run mainly gap and Robinson will get more of the 1st and 2nd and on schedule carries (though I’m sure it will be a bit running back by committee with Robinson and Ekler sharing carries). Ekler will get the 3rd down/passing down touches.

 

It will be interesting to see what we do with Daniels in regards to designed QB runs. I’m sure there will be a liberal sprinkling of RPO’s. I hope we don’t overdo that - although it’s probably the easiest way to get Daniels feet wet it might not be the best way to develop him for the longer term.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

21 hours ago, oraphus said:

I refuse to believe that Doctson went from pretty good rookie year to be being below average overnight. much more apt to blame Bienimes idiotic Offensive scheme/ game plan and general teams ineptitude under Rivera. The team pretty much gave up.

I am looking for a big time rebound from Doctson. Forbes i am less optimistic about.. but i hope Quinn can. at least make his serviceable.

Wiley was a below average starter in KC.. and has gotten worse here with less talented players around him. I'd move him to guard maybe or promote him to towel boy 

 

Doctson vs Dotson. Both 1st rounders. One was a bust and out of the league, the other we hope is not.

[oraphus]

33 minutes ago, Always A Commander Never A Captain said:

 

Doctson vs Dotson. Both 1st rounders. One was a bust and out of the league, the other we hope is not.

thanks for the spell check 'genius'

[RandyHolt]

Are we taking bets on who this years freelancing ball-hawk DB will be capturing everybody's except the irritated coaches eye?

[clskinsfan]

2 hours ago, Going Commando said:

 

This just isn't true.  And we did run mostly gap schemes last year, and actually ran the ball pretty well when we designed to do so.  But as for Wylie, every objective measure has him at average.  Mostly quiet play with a couple of bad losses peppered in each game is what average OT play looks like in the NFL, especially when you're running a ton of shotgun spread where the OL is in a true pass set all game.  Every team racks up pressures from that style of play, including the ones with high end OLs like KC and Detroit. 

 

Wylie and the OL were scapegoated last season because fans had an agenda about defending Howell when he was struggling, and judging from the posts about Wylie in here, that narrative stuck.  So how about reframing the discussion about Wylie now that fans have a new agenda to defend Adam Peters: after overhauling 70% of the roster, do you really think Peters would have left Wylie as one of the very few untouched starters from last year if he was garbage?  Not only is Wylie keeping his job, they didn't even really draft or sign anyone to push him.  He and Cosmi and McLauren and maybe Daron are the only guys on the entire roster for whom that's the case.

 

I think I've actually been more critical of Peters than anyone else here, especially when it comes to the Brandon Coleman pick and the missed opportunities for OLs in the draft.  Yet even I think the decision to keep Wylie as a starter is fine.

We will just have to disagree. Other than Gates, Wiley was the worst player on the offense last year imo. 

[CTskin]

OTAs day 1 was fun, media was buzzing… OTAs were scheduled for the15th and 17th but I haven’t see anything new. Were these closed to the media?

[Skinsinparadise]

36 minutes ago, CTskin said:

OTAs day 1 was fun, media was buzzing… OTAs were scheduled for the15th and 17th but I haven’t see anything new. Were these closed to the media?

 

 

Not sure what's open to the media but looks like next week we got more

 

https://www.commanders.com/news/dates-set-for-commanders-2024-otas-minicamp

 

OTA workouts:

• May 14-15
• May 17
• May 21-22
• May 24
• June 4-5
• June 7

Mandatory minicamp

• June 11-13

 

[CTskin]

9 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

 

Not sure what's open to the media but looks like next week we got more

 

https://www.commanders.com/news/dates-set-for-commanders-2024-otas-minicamp

 

OTA workouts:

• May 14-15
• May 17
• May 21-22
• May 24
• June 4-5
• June 7

Mandatory minicamp

• June 11-13

 

Yea that’s what I was looking at also. I didnt see anything about OTAs being cancelled so my thought is they’re closed to the media. 
 

After literally hundreds of articles and clips posted from day 1, it doesn’t make sense that we haven’t gotten anything since. Need my fix!

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[RandyHolt]

Calling it - less than 20 carries by RBs week 1.

[bird_1972]

Can we please run BRob into the ground this season? 

 

Thanks.

[Skinsinparadise]

Listening to Keim, playing up the leaders now on this team which was missing previously.

 

I've heard others around the team that Jonathan Allen is a good dude but not a traditional leader type -- he's more a set an example and gets angry when things go awry.  Terry is more of a leader by example on and off the field.

 

But been missing that London Fletcher type.  Mitch Tischler who has been around the team for a decade plus really emphasized over the years the lack of leaders.

 

Keim talked up Bobby Wagner on this front who is already a mentor to some players and helping the O line, etc.   Ertz and Ekeler.

 

I know among the draftees -- Sainstrill known as a vocal leader and mentor.  Coleman is vocal.   McCaffrey comes off as polished already as Terry.

 

Listening to his colllege coach, Sinnott, comes off a bit of a character, prankster, etc -- so his similarities to Cooley might transcend just his play.

 

 

 

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

On 5/16/2024 at 9:34 AM, Koolblue13 said:

I see Ekeler having a lot of 5 run/5 catch games and not much more. BRob is going to be the feature back and closer to 20 carry/5 catch games, while CRod has 10 carry games straight up the middle.

That's 35 runs a game if you don't account for Daniel's running.

 

I know you love the run game, but I doubt it works out like that.  Yes, they're going to run the ball more, but I think they're not going to try and hide Daniels in the passing game.  They're going to let him throw it a bunch.  Some will be shorter, quick game stuff.  

 

There will be balance, and we will run the ball a lot more.  But I doubt we run more than we pass.  Remember, Kliff's formative years were in the air raid offense.  Are we going to run the air raid offense?  No.  But he likes to throw the ball. And we're going to throw the ball.  Probably more than we run it, at least by a little bit.   

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

1 hour ago, Skinsinparadise said:

Listening to Keim, playing up the leaders now on this team which was missing previously.

 

I've heard others around the team that Jonathan Allen is a good dude but not a traditional leader type -- he's more a set an example and gets angry when things go awry.  Terry is more of a leader by example on and off the field.

 

But been missing that London Fletcher type.  Mitch Tischler who has been around the team for a decade plus really emphasized over the years the lack of leaders.

 

Keim talked up Bobby Wagner on this front who is already a mentor to some players and helping the O line, etc.   Ertz and Ekeler.

 

I know among the draftees -- Sainstrill known as a vocal leader and mentor.  Coleman is vocal.   McCaffrey comes off as polished already as Terry.

 

Listening to his colllege coach, Sinnott, comes off a bit of a character, prankster, etc -- so his similarities to Cooley might transcend just his ply

 

 

 

I feel like a lot of good TE's are either quirky characters or more straight laced do the job. It's an odd duck position. So

 

Tony G was kind of both. But Gates (I think) and Witten were straight laced.

 

Kelce, Kittle, and Gronk were a bit more odd ducks. Old school but Jeremy Shockey was an odd duck.

 

At a certain point shifting from the hyper physical blocking in the mix to juking LB's and trying to out run safeties requires an unusual mindset.