00:00Ben Solak, who writes at ESPN.com, early this morning put out a story about all of the NFL
00:08coordinators, new NFL coordinators, and he wrote about 10 of them. But listen to this,
00:15because I've talked about how there's been a massive turnover in coordinators this offseason,
00:22and a lot of new coordinators as well. He writes, there are 64 offensive and
00:29defensive coordinator positions in the NFL. More than half of them have turned over
00:38this season. The total count is 35 new coordinators this year, 21 new offensive coordinators in the
00:50NFL. 21 out of 32 teams, 21 new offensive coordinators, and 14 new defensive coordinators.
01:01He said, the turnover in the league has never been greater as expectations rise higher and
01:06faster than ever before, produce quickly, or make room for the next guy. He writes, it's not hard
01:13as such to find 10 new coordinators with big questions approaching the 2026 season. Sean
01:20Mannion has the fate of quarterback Jalen Hurts in his hands in Philadelphia. Eric Biennemi needs to
01:26bring something, anything new to the Chiefs' stale offense. Jonathan Gannon has to solve a Packers
01:35defense without star edge rusher Micah Parsons long enough to stay in the playoff hunt. He writes,
01:42but none of them made the list of the top 10. But the top 10 who did have Super Bowl
01:48aspirations
01:49hanging in the balance of their efforts, those are the 10 he focused on. And he did write
01:55parenthetically, okay, maybe not the Browns and Commanders. I would hope that our chances of reaching
02:02the postseason and being a threat are better than Cleveland's. We'll see. Still, the stakes are high
02:07for these newcomers, a couple of whom will become the Clint Kubiak or, yeah, will become the Clint
02:13Kubiak of this upcoming season. So out of the 10 coordinators that have the most questions about
02:22them, two of those 10 are Washington's coordinators, both offense and defensive coordinators.
02:30Washington's the only team that has both coordinators in his top 10 in terms of question
02:37marks. And I'm going to read to you what he said about both David Blau and Durante Jones.
02:43I'll start with Blau, Ben Solak, ESPN, looking at all of these new coordinators in the NFL,
02:5035 new coordinators out of 64 available positions, 21 of them on the offensive side. By the way,
02:58he did not outline or detail how many of them are new, but I think more than half of them
03:03of the coordinators in the NFL of the 35 are actually first time coordinators, including the
03:10two in Washington. And he writes about Blau. What does a Cliff Kingsbury slash Ben Johnson
03:18hybrid offense look like? Exciting alchemy is underway at Washington's facility in Ashburn,
03:25Virginia. Commanders head coach, Dan Quinn made quite the splash this off season,
03:30replacing veteran coordinator Kingsbury, a respected schemer with head coaching experience
03:35who ran a seemingly ideal offense for mobile quarterback, Jaden Daniels with Blau, a 30 year
03:42old assistance quarterbacks coach on his staff. Blau, who was a practice squad player as recently
03:50as 2023, was an assistant for only two years under Kingsbury before getting this huge promotion.
03:57Blau was quickly snagged by Kingsbury because of the impression he left when Kingsbury coached the
04:03Cardinals. During the pandemic impacted 2020 season, when the Cardinals endured multiple quarterback
04:09absences, they signed Blau off the Lions practice squad and started him just two weeks later.
04:15This was Kingsbury talking about him in 2024 about Blau. Quote, I remember we got him in Arizona for a
04:22couple of weeks and he probably knew the offense better than I did after two weeks. I think he's
04:28got a chance to move up really quickly in this profession. I wonder if Cliff knew he was hiring his
04:36replacement. I think he did. Now, I think he thought he was hiring his replacement once he got back
04:44in to a head coaching job position. I'll continue. Ben Solak writes from ESPN.com. Kingsbury is not the
04:54only coach on whom Blau left a lasting impression. Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who saw Blau
05:01through the years in Detroit when Johnson was coaching offense and Blau was a player, holds his
05:07former reserve quarterback in high esteem. This is Ben Johnson talking about David Blau. Quote,
05:14having played quarterback, he's got that inward feel of how to, of how to, excuse me, help elevate that
05:21position. And I think he'll be able to do that in that play calling role moving forward. I think he'll
05:27be one of those guys who gets a head job before you know it. Closed quote. Look, Detroit and other
05:36teams
05:36started inquiring about David Blau after his first year, 2024, in Washington. Washington did not give
05:43permission for anybody to speak with Blau. And we do now know that if Blau, if they had kept Kingsbury
05:52or if they had hired somebody else, Blau would be gone. He'd be the offensive coordinator, most likely
05:56in Detroit. Solak of ESPN continues, these two coaches, Kingsbury and Johnson, provide important
06:05schematic influences that will form Blau's offense in Washington, but they run extremely different
06:11systems. The Kingsbury offense lives out of the shotgun, 70% last season, fifth highest in the
06:17league, and he tries to get the ball out fast. The Johnson offense goes under center. The Bears,
06:2249% shotgun rate last season, was fifth lowest in the league and prefers long developing dropbacks.
06:31The Kingsbury offense spreads the field out pre-snap and doesn't change the picture much.
06:3624th in motion rate last season. The Johnson offense uses condensed formations to conceal
06:43intentions and constantly sends players in motion, 11th in motion rate in 2025. The Kingsbury offense
06:50wants to use quick tempo to catch defenses unaware and relies on quick code word play calls to line up
06:57fast. The Johnson offense is so wordy that the Bears occasionally had trouble getting out of the
07:03huddle in time last season. These are Blau's two main offensive influences, and it's clear he's going
07:11to try to marry them somehow for the commanders. He has spoken openly about getting Daniels under center
07:18more to reimagine the running game and build some play action keepers off the run action, something that
07:24was never a priority for Kingsbury. Blau, however, has also spoken about retaining the stress
07:30of Kingsbury's no huddle approach, something that Johnson's long-winded offense never really uses
07:38save for two-minute drills. The effort is as bold as it is difficult. The product we see in week
07:46one will
07:46not be a finished one, and it's likely Washington's offense improves over the fall
07:51similarly to how the Bears offense improved under Johnson in year one. Blau's not an experienced coach,
07:59but Quinn has been doing this for a long time and knows how to weather the developmental storm
08:04while trusting the process. If Blau can land the plane and blend these two offenses, there's a chance
08:13Washington's offense is one of the league's most dangerous down the home stretch.
08:20And then he writes to finish up, even if Blau gets the X's nose part right, the commanders are still
08:25lacking clear receiver options behind Terry McLaurin and are once again employing a committee of mid-tier
08:31running backs. The task is tall in Washington, and Quinn made a huge bet on Blau to meet that moment.
08:38This might be the coolest thing we see all season. So there are a couple of things about Ben Solak's
08:47write-up on the 10 most interesting coordinator, new coordinator storylines, is that there is an
08:57expectation from Solak that there's going to be a true marrying of the two systems, the Kingsbury system
09:03and the Ben Johnson system. Keep in mind, too, Kevin O'Connell was an influence for David Blau,
09:10and he's talked about that before. I wonder how much of a true marrying. Marrying almost implies
09:20it's going to be 50% Kingsbury, 50% Ben Johnson. I don't see that personally. I see that they
09:28are
09:29not going to be able to completely discard some of the Kingsbury stuff because Blau likes some of the
09:36Kingsbury stuff. But I think it feels more like an 80-20. It feels more like this is going to
09:42be 80%
09:43Ben Johnson, 20% Kingsbury, and eventually it may evolve into 100% Ben Johnson. I actually think that
09:51offense suits Jaden Daniels better. Now, I think he can excel and flourish and succeed in any offensive
09:59system. Obviously, the Kingsbury system, which employed more shotgun, less play action,
10:06less motion, more hurry up, he excelled in. Just so everybody knows, that's not the air raid
10:14offense. It's not the spread. It's not a college offense. That's not what the Kingsbury offense at
10:21the NFL level is. But it was certainly an offense for a young quarterback coming out of a college system
10:29where it was a much easier adaptation offense for Jaden into the NFL. He can do any of these things
10:37and he can do any of these things at a high level. Let's not try to rewrite history. Washington's
10:46offense in 2024 was a top three, four offense by almost any metric. Top five worst case by any metric.
10:54It was unstoppable at times without a great supporting cast. Um, and last year with all of
11:04the injuries, including Jaden Daniels, only playing four games, start to finish throughout the season,
11:10it was middle of the pack in most offensive metrics. It wasn't a terrible offense. It wasn't
11:16good at times, but it wasn't terrible, but they were working with, you know, third and fourth tier
11:24players for much of the season. Um, but I think from the, the, the read on this, the one thing
11:33that
11:33I'd push back on Solak on is, is it going to be a true marrying of the two systems or
11:38is it really
11:39going to be, you know, heavily weighted on the Ben Johnson scheme? I prefer it be that because I
11:46actually think a truly, you know, balanced zone run scheme with some effectiveness in that is going to
11:53make Jaden in this offense even more lethal because play action is something that always helps
12:00quarterbacks real play action. And Jaden's got great ball handling skills. And I think whether
12:06it's under center or it's play action from the shotgun, you can do both. Um, especially out of
12:12the pistol, you know, the play action may be a little bit more effective out of the pistol because
12:17you turn your back and you mask the football on the fake. Um, but, um, I think that that has
12:24the
12:25possibility to really be, uh, uh, the best fit for Jaden's skillset. Again, I think almost any offense
12:32would work and it's obvious that Cliff's offense worked for him, but I think this one's going to work
12:38really well, uh, also. And I think the other big takeaway from this, from this story is just the idea
12:45that this is going to be a work in progress that, you know, week one is not going to be
12:52a finished
12:52product, but it will improve similar to the way, um, Caleb Williams improved with Ben Johnson during
13:01the course of the season. I mean, I hope it doesn't take too long, but there it's, it's certainly going
13:09to be more wordy. There's certainly going to be, uh, changes in terms of how, you know, you get footwork
13:16down, et cetera. I have a feeling it's going to be a smoother transition than people think. Um, but if
13:23it is a slow kind of a grind, uh, in developing that offense, now he's obviously very, uh, you know,
13:31bullish that by the, you know, end of the year, it'll be really good. Um, but let me just say
13:38that
13:38Chicago's offense started slowly kind of in the first few weeks of the season, but then they were
13:46running off pretty good offensive days by week three, week four, week five, week six, you know,
13:52and by the midpoint of the season, you know, they were putting up 40 plus on the Bengals. Now their
13:57defense was terrible, terrible, terrible. And then we saw what happened in the post season. I mean,
14:04incredible, you know, play by the offense against green Bay's defense. And then in the snow against
14:10the Rams, you know, they had a shot certainly to win. So that's what was written about David Blau in
14:17looking at all of these new coordinators and picking Washington is the only team with two
14:22super interesting, intriguing question laced coordinators, which he wrote about extensively.
14:30I'll tell you what he said about Durante Jones. When we come back, Kevin Ciancio, the team 980 and
14:36the team 980.com.
