GoPros, Meta glasses and notecards: How the Commanders are learning a new offense

ASHBURN, Va. — David Blough had the play all schemed up, a short pass from Jayden Daniels to Terry McLaurin designed for maximum run after the catch. This was a bread-and-butter play. Get your best player the ball and let him loose.

And as he watched it unfold, everything seemed fine. Daniels looked off the defense and allowed McLaurin a few seconds to weave open. The franchise quarterback fired the ball to his star receiver without an issue. But when McLaurin turned around, there was no space for him to run.

Something went haywire. And as the three huddled together, they soon found out why.

McLaurin had lined up a little too close to the offensive line. One yard, or maybe two yards, would have given him more space. It was the difference between a big gain and just a routine catch.

“Me being [a few yards out] would not only give me space to move, but would time up the route better,” he said. “Because I have a wider angle of departure. Then, when I’m coming in on the [route], the timing will be more on the run. We want to hit things on the run. Those will be huge plays. That’s the difference between catch and tackles and catch and runs.”

This is life in Washington’s training camp right now. As the days grind on, the Commanders offense continues its crash course in getting acquainted with a new playbook. No detail is too small when the margins are just a few yards here and there.

Blough, the team’s new offensive coordinator, is trying everything he can to make sure his unit understands it. He’s pulled out Meta glasses, GoPro cameras and memory tricks to make it digestible. With all the motions, formations and snap counts, the Commanders aren’t saying no to any device that can help them learn.

“We looked and said, ‘Is there any advantage we can find doing it?’” head coach Dan Quinn said of adding new teaching methods. “Way back in the offseason, we even tried some Meta glasses to see what that would look like. We edited those clips into the film just to give the quarterbacks another view at the [offense].”

Blough started the work of instructing this offense before any player stepped foot in his office.

First, he wanted to group all of the play calls into “families.” Plays that had similar concepts would start with the same letter.

“These T words mean this. These D words mean this,” Quinn said. “We try to find common themes for the teaching.”

In theory, that would give players an immediate call back when they heard plays. It would also give them a general understanding of what the play was supposed to look like and their role in it.

Blough had another motive for starting the teaching process at that conceptual level. Not only would players be able to retain information quicker, but they’d also see plays from a broader perspective. They’d understand why they can’t run a route five yards longer, because it might interfere with the tight end’s responsibility. Or maybe it would throw off a lane for the running back.

In Blough’s offense, there can be multiple players in motion before a snap. There is a heavy dose of play action. It is designed to be more unpredictable for defenses and create more explosiveness. That’s why Blough was hired to resurrect Washington’s office after it ranked 22nd in total yards last year.

But it also means there’s more room for plays to go wrong if anyone misses an assignment.

“Your ability to be able to learn things conceptually allows you to understand the spacing,” McLaurin said.

As an example, McLaurin talked about running a corner route. He said if he comes out of his break at the wrong angle, a defender could cover him and a tight end.

“If I don’t know that detail, I can mess up the whole play,” he said.

Once that was in place, the staff went into Socratic seminar mode. Quinn called it “teach-backs.” Players were called on and asked to teach the concepts in their own words.

Quinn had a three-step plan. The plays would be drawn up in the meeting rooms. Then, it would be physically taught in walk-throughs. After that, it was live in practice and evaluated.

“We think of it like crawl, walk, run. The crawl part is the meetings, and then in the evenings, walk-throughs. Then out to practice. So, those three steps are a big one,” Quinn said. “If you really want to know it, you have to have the player teach it back to have a real understanding.”

Each player added their own bells and whistles to the process. All the quarterbacks wore GoPros on their heads so the staff could see where they were looking. If they weren’t getting through their progressions quickly enough, or looking at the wrong part of the play, mistakes could be quickly corrected.

“Maybe his eyes were a little late, or maybe I didn’t get all my steps [on the route before he threw it],” McLaurin said. “It’s all important, getting a good stride length so I can run after the catch.”

Other players created notecards at night. Wide receiver Jaylin Lane had a system he developed in college, where he had five different offensive coordinators. He would write out each play call on a card, then draw the play in its entirety.

“Blough helped us with the naming, putting things in families. But I got to be able to draw it up. That helps me take it from the paper to the field,” he said.

Quinn even added his own quirks. During live drills, he stands directly behind the quarterback or safety to see how the play unfolds. He wants to see the play from the player’s vantage point to better teach it.

“Just small cues that I’m trying to find that I may have not seen from a sideline perspective,” he said.

The offensive won’t be fully installed until Day 11 or 12 of camp. It is only Day 7.

But so far, it seems to be coming along. On a recent day of camp, Blough drew up another quick pass. This time, Daniels dropped back in play action, quickly turning around and throwing a dart to Dyami Brown.

Unlike the McLaurin play, this time Brown caught it in stride and had the middle of the field wide open to run.

Progress.

The GoPros and notecards are paying off.