Commanders vs. Seahawks Week 9 Preview: Keys To Victory & Score Prediction | Season Is On The Line

Commanders vs. Seahawks Week 9 Preview: Keys To Victory & Score Prediction | Season Is On The Line

[Music] We might be only in week nine Commanders Nation, but make no mistake, it is do or die on Sunday Night Football versus the Seattle Seahawks. Welcome into the Commander Report. I’m your host, Jack Sperry. Today, we’re going to preview uh this Sunday Night Football matchup between the Commanders and Seahawks and what feels like a must-win scenario for the Burgundy and Gold before the NFL trade deadline. But make sure you guys join us on Sunday night for this crucial matchup for the Commanders. We’re going to be starting at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, a little bit under an hour before kickoff. And of course, we’ll have live playbyplay and analysis of the game itself, followed by our extensive postgame coverage. Hopefully, the Commanders can turn around their season here. So, make sure you click that subscribe button and join us uh for all of our videos and live shows that we do here on the Commander Support this season. So, let’s dive right into this matchup here. 5 and2 Seattle Seahawks travel to Northwest Stadium in Landover this weekend to take on the three and five Washington Commanders. The Commanders have lost three straight ball games and are looking to avoid making it a fourth straight loss here uh in a game where you know if you win you can get to four and five. You’re you’re beating a real a pretty darn good balanced playoff caliber football team with Jaden Daniels back in the lineup. But if you lose, you go down to three and six, you’ve lost four straight games, and you might be selling at the NFL trade deadline. So, plain and simply, guys, this feels like a must-win for the Washington Commanders. Like I said, if you can win, you feel a little bit of hope. You know, you probably don’t sell off some of some of your veteran players in the hopes that when Terry McLuren returns to the lineup, you’re going to be able to go on a run at the end of the season. But if you lose, season feels over and they might be selling at the deadline. So, the implications for the trade deadline are going to be massive in terms of the result of this ball game. The good news is Jaden Daniels will be back this week. He is your superstar player, the best player on the team, period. And whenever you have Jaden Daniels on the football field, you have a chance of winning that ball game. We saw we saw that a lot last year. But the bad news is he’s going to be without his Robin here. Uh Terry McLuren is out yet again with the same quad injury. He reinjured it last week versus the Kansas City Chiefs. Um, and of course, um, you know, we we’ve seen the difference between what this offense looks like with Jaden and Terry both on the field at the same time versus them being injured. And it’s not pretty. So hopefully, uh, Jaden is going to be able to lift up this group even with Terry out of the lineup. Let’s uh, shift our focus here to the Seattle Seahawks in the coaching and scheme breakdown. Mike McDonald is their head coach, their secondyear guy. Uh, he’s got a 15-9 record. He’s done pretty darn good job there in Seattle. He runs at McDonald 4-3 under scheme. uh lots of different blitz looks, two high safeties, uh you know, really a lot of nickel as well and he calls the defensive plays here in Seattle. Then on offense, new offensive coordinator Clint Kubak’s done a really, really good job running that new school Shanahan offense uh that he’s they took over from New Orleans and previously from the San Francisco 49ers, of course. Take a look at the offensive ranks and where this Seattle offense ranks among the rest of the National Football League. And it’s a pretty darn good unit. Top 10 in scoring offense. Uh they’re only 11th in in total offense, which surprised me a little bit, but uh they really efficient football team and they really do have a lot of explosive plays in this offense and we’ll talk about that a little bit later with Sam Darnold. Uh they do give the away the football quite a bit, 12 turnovers in the first few weeks of the season here, their first seven games. That’s 26th in the National Football League as we stand here today, but they certainly have their weaknesses. They’re not very good on third down. can turn the football over as well. And they don’t really run the football all that effectively either. You guys can take a look at their offensive uh personnel. You got Sam Darnold, their free agent acquisition at quarterback. Then you got along the offensive line. I’d say their tackles are pretty good. Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas are both having solid seasons. Gray Zable, their first round pick out of NDSU, is also having a very solid season. I will say their center and their right guard combination is not the best in the league. Uh but then you get to Jackson Smith and Jigba Cooper Cup. You got Kenneth Walker um as kind of their top three kind of weapons there. And then you got Elijah Royo, a tight a rookie tight end out of Miami and Zack Charbanet um there as their backup running back. Then you get to the defensive side of the ball and this is really where this uh group, you know, is really good. All right, they’re top 10 and most of the key metrics that you look at now. You know, I would say they’re a little bit weaker against the pass than they are against the run. They are so stout against the run. Uh they don’t turn the football over that much. They’re around league average in terms of turning the football over, but the final product there is the seventh best scoring defense in the National Football League. McDonald really knows what he’s doing from a schematic standpoint, and this uh group does a good job um executing his scheme. You can take a look here at the defensive line, what we can expect from these guys. Demarcus Lawrence is their Leo. That’s kind of the bigger defensive end type and a 4-3 under scheme. You got Jiren Reed, Byron Murphy, and Leonard Williams. probably maybe one of the best interior uh defensive line groups in the National Football League so far this year. Byron Murphy has really broken out as a real good nose tackle for them. And then Derek Hall is a really good Sam linebacker. Um you know, can get after quarterbacks for sure. And they’ve got good depth at outside at the edge rusher position as well. They got Boyet Maf, they got Euchenosu. They’ve got a good group of edge rushers here in Seattle. One of the better pass rushers and uh and also run defense units in the National Football League. They also have a decent uh offball linebacker duo and Ernest Jones uh and Tyrese Knight. You know, those two, you know, will be certainly there to help clean up in the run game, do all those things. Not anything special from these two, but certainly good enough. Then you get into the secondary where you got Devon Witherspoon, uh who is an absolutely fantastic number one corner. He usually plays in the slot for them. Reek Woolen and Josh Job are their outside corners usually when they play a nickel. And then they’ve got Julian Love and Kobe Bryant as their two safeties. Uh again, they play a lot of split safety stuff in this defense, so there’s not really a true free safety, strong safety dynamic really. Uh both those guys uh play pretty similar uh in terms of their role in this defense. So, still to come here on the Commander Report preview for week nine, my keys to victory versus the Seattle Seahawks. I’ve got my scouting report on Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold and what the Commanders can do to stop him. Then I’ll get into my official week nine score prediction for your Washington Commanders. But before we get into the rest of today’s show, have a word from our sponsor today at Harry’s. And I don’t have to tell you guys that maneuvering the men’s razor space these days is a bit of a nightmare. The quality products are always super expensive and refills are equally as ridiculously expensive. And when you try and save a little bit of money, you get stuck with dull razors that irritate your skin. That’s exactly why I switched to Harry’s Plus and I haven’t looked back since. Harry’s Plus has an advanced pivoting system to reach every corner of your face, refined blade tech for a closer, smoother shave, and a weighted metal handle, which is Harry’s heaviest handle ever for added control and comfort. But I think the best part about Harry’s Plus is how affordable it is. 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But with this, you get a little bit of heft in your hand, and it really feels like uh premium quality uh shaving products, but you don’t have to break the bank to be able to get uh a really great barberhop quality shave. So, for a limited time only, our listeners get the Harry Plus trial set for only $10 at harrys.com/hat. This set includes the allnew Harry’s Plus razor, one refined fiveblade cartridge, a 2oz foaming shave gel, and a travel cover to protect your blades on the go. Just head on over to harrys.com/hat to claim this offer. And after you you purchase, they’ll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. A big thank you to Harry’s for sponsoring today’s edition of the Commander Report. My first key to victory for the Commanders to take down the Seattle Seahawks and get the upset is to make Sam comfortable or Sam Sam Darnold uncomfortable. Okay. And Sam Darnold one of the better quarterbacks in the National Football League in my opinion. I think that he’s a good franchise level quarterback. I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s a bonafide superstar or anything like that, but he’s got legitimate arm talent. He pushes the ball down the field. He can throw the ball with play action over the middle of the field. All the modern kind of Shanahan stuff that he has run in Minnesota and Seattle over the last two years. He’s one of the best in the league at doing that and mentally processing defenses to pick apart these units that he’s going up against. Now, some of the cons sometime sometimes he’ll throw the ball into a window he can’t make it in. Sometimes that decision-m can be a bit muddy. He can hold the ball trying to hunt for those big plays at times and then he can uh kind of, you know, crumble under pressure at times. Just look at the uh late the last two games of his season last year with the Minnesota Vikings when he faced more pressure. He completely crumbled in those circumstances. But when you look at Sam’s advanced numbers this year, most of them are right up there with the top in the league. I think he’s playing at a top 10 level right now. And you know, I think one of the things that really stands out to you is the efficiency. All right, number one in the league in yards per attempt. He’s number one in the league in big-time throw percentage. So that that ability to throw the ball into tight windows with excellent velocity and touch and accuracy is as good as anybody in the league. And you know, the average depth of target, I mean, almost 10 yards past the uh line of scrimmage every single time he throws the football, which is first in the National Football League. and as a result he’s a top five producer in EPA per play. Uh so excellent quarterback. This is certainly going to be a challenge for the Washington Commanders and they have to take away the deep passing game. And I think the biggest biggest part of that is to double Jackson Smith and Jigba. Okay, this guy is one of, if not the best receiver in the game today. He’s in the running for offensive player of the year and he’s almost already approaching 1,000 yards on the season. Okay, he’s got 819 on the year so far. Um, just astronomical numbers here. 50 catches already with four touchdowns. And listen, man, it’s not like I’m the first one to come up with the idea to double this guy. Most teams try and double him and it’s it still doesn’t work. So, you have to really do a good job uh pressing him at the line of scrimmage, giving him safety help. You know, maybe do some trail technique and some dog and cone coverages, stuff like that to be able to uh take him away. And, you know, it’s going to be a tough task because he is one of the better route runners in the league. and Sam Darnold and him have an excellent chemistry. Uh but it’s a must if the Commanders want to contain the deep passing game here in Seattle. Then when Sam Darnold does potentially make some mistakes, puts the ball in the ground, puts the ball in harm’s way, you got to capitalize. You can’t have a tip ball in the air and have it drop to the ground. You can’t have a fumble and have them recover. Like you got to have those uh kind of plays go in your favor in this ball game in my opinion. And you know, we did that a little bit last week versus the Kansas City Chiefs. You got a couple of interceptions in the first half. You got to do that again in this ball game and then you got to hold up better in the second half of course. But then I think a big thing for the Commanders in order to win this game would be to bench Bobby Wagner. Now I just want to make abundantly clear I don’t think the coaching staff is going to do this because Wagner is a team captain because he’s one of the all-time greats at the position because he’s a big hub of communication as the green dot for this commander defense and they probably don’t want to go away from him when it comes to those things. But, you know, he’s just so goddamn slow, man. And he’s just getting toasted time and time and time and time again, game after game after game at this point. And, you know, I’ve been saying it for weeks now. This defense is not going to get consistently better on a week- toeek basis unless Bobby Wagner comes off the field. And listen, man, you got some athletic young guys in this room. You got Kane Madano. You’ve got Allejo who had a really good preseason. Of course, you got Jordan McGee who’s been who’s been getting more time over the last several weeks. But, it’s time to go to the young guns, man. You got to get some more speed out there. Or else these good offensive play callers like Clint Kubak for example are going to find ways to match up Bobby Wagner on their dynamic playmakers just like Andy Reid did in the second half of last week’s game. And you’re not going to have the speed to be able to keep up uh with those dynamic receiving weapons. But then another thing that you got to do is you got to get the Seattle Seahawks to third down. And right now Seattle is one of the worst third down offenses in the National Football League. And that’s for a reason. And that reason is they like to throw the ball down the field on first and second down. So if they have so if those balls fall incomplete, they have a higher rate of getting to third and long, right? So when they’re in third down, you know, they’re, you know, those third down percentages is more heavy towards the third and long side than the third and short side. Um, which is why their third down conversion rate is lower um, in this league. It’s bottom 10 in the league right now. So if you can get them to third down, you can get them off the field. And of course, the key to that is to be able to force some incompletions on first and second down. So, make sure you guys click that thumbs up icon if you haven’t already. We’re going to talk about some offensive takeaways here in just a second. But, if you want this defense to play better this week, click that thumbs up icon. Get some positive momentum and some positive vibes going down there in the chat. Then, we get to the offensive side of the ball. And Jaden Daniels, I think, needs to needs to be special in this game. I think that Seattle is going to get the points um that they usually get in this football game. Um, and you know, you’re going to have to pretty much win a shootout in order to do that. Even without Terry McLuren, this Jaden Daniels is going to have to really play a special brand of football. And I don’t think that you’re going to be able to lean on the run game because the Seattle Seahawks defense is excellent at that. They’re number one in the NFL right now in EPA per rush allowed. Um, so this is a very stout defensive front. They do a really good job plugging up the run. So, it’s going to be up to Jaden Daniels to be able to carry the load offensively in this one with his arm. And obviously, that’s what makes Terry McLuren being out of the lineup so freaking important and such a big blow to the Commander chances of winning this ball game in my opinion. But listen, man, somebody’s going to have to step up for this Commander team moving forward in the passing game. And obviously, it can’t be Terry McLuren. It’s going to have to be somebody else. And you know, in some games, Debo has certainly carried the load. And in most of those games, you know, the Commanders have been able to win, but you know, in some games, Bill Crosky Merritt in the run game has been able to get some things going. You know, Zack Z has certainly been a safety blanket for Jaden Daniels throughout this his first two years in the league. But Luke McAffrey has shown some really promising things. Had a couple really nice catches and some big-time plays versus the Chiefs in the first half on Monday Night Football. And then guys like Chris Moore, Robbie Chos, and Jaylen Lane have all had flashes. But the question is, can they put it all together in this ball game with Jaden Daniels putting together a really special brand of football on display on Sunday night? Uh, but then, you know, I think in the run game, obviously, I don’t think you’re going to be able to rely on it to be able to just carry to carry this group to a win. Uh, but I do think you have to go to it eventually. You can’t just completely abandon it. And I think when you do go to the run game, you got to be multiple. All right. And what I mean by that is you got to employ uh Debo Samuel on orbit Motions and on jet sweeps. You got to employ uh Jaden Daniels on read options. You got to make this Seattle defense think about, you know, who’s getting the ball here, okay? Cuz I think a little bit of the problem with the run game the last three weeks is that everybody kind of it’s a it’s gotten a little stale. It’s gotten a little bit predictable on the run game side for the Washington Commanders. I think in this game, Cliff Kingsbury needs to get in his bag and get the ball to Debo, get the ball to Jaden. Use uh the screen game with Debo uh as an extension of the run game. get creative with how you get the run game going, especially on early downs. And then another big thing is to limit turnovers. Not only do you need to capitalize on their mistakes, but you need to protect the football at a high level. You didn’t do that against the Chicago Bears uh a few weeks back. And you know, you need to do a better job of that moving forward. This is a Seattle team and defense that does take the football away though. Uh so you need to do a good job protecting that football while also trying to move the ball down the field at the same time. And then if it is close and if the Commanders succeed on both sides of the ball to make this a close game in the fourth quarter, you got to make the play. All right? You got to make that uh big touchdown drive late or you need to get that big turnover in the fourth quarter or whatever that play ends up needing to be made. You got to make that play and if you do that, you’re going to have a chance to walk away with a W. Now, let’s get it’s time for our score predictions here, guys. So, we can take a look at what the trends predict, which predicts a 2621 Seahawks victory. when you cross reference uh the Seahawks offense uh Commanders defense, Commanders offense, and Seahawks defense there and what they’re averaging points per game throughout the season. Um but I’m actually going to have the Seahawks win with a greater margin here. I’m going to go Seahawks 34, Commanders 23. I think Bobby Wagner once again will be a liability. I think once again we’ll see some fight from this Commanders team, but I don’t really see how they’re going to be able to uh you know contain Jackson, Smith, and Jigba when other teams have not been able to. And this commander secondary has really struggled uh this season. So uh I’m going to go 3423. Commanders lose. They get to their fourth straight loss. They go to 3-6 and I think they’ll be selling at the deadline by Tuesday afternoon. So it’s your turn. Let me know down there in the comments section. Predict the score of Commanders versus Seahawks. Do you think the Commanders pull off the upset and save their season? Let me know what you guys think down there in the comments section. And that’ll be it for this week’s preview for the Washington Commanders here in week nine. We do these previews every single week. So, if you guys want in-depth previews for every single game the Commanders play this year, make sure you guys click that subscribe button. Until next time, guys. Hail to the Commanders.

The Washington Commanders face a do-or-die moment in Week 9 as Jayden Daniels and company battle the Seattle Seahawks in a crucial primetime showdown on Monday Night Football. With Terry McLaurin sidelined and the season hanging in the balance, Jack Sperry breaks down the Commanders’ keys to victory, including how Washington can pressure Sam Darnold, limit turnovers, and get a special performance from JD5 to keep playoff hopes alive. Don’t miss Sperry’s full Commanders vs. Seahawks preview, score prediction, and analysis ahead of kickoff at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland. Hit that SUBSCRIBE button on Commanders Report by Chat Sports for nonstop Washington Commanders news, rumors, and live watch parties all season long!

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Washington Commanders Keys To Victory vs. Seahawks:
– Make Sam Darnold Uncomfortable
– Double Jaxson Smith-Njigba
– Capitalize On Mistakes
– Bench Bobby Wagner
– Get Them To 3rd
– Jayden Daniels Has To Be Special
– Someone Has To Step Up
– Be Multiple In The Run Game
– Limit Turnovers
– Make ‘The Play’ Late

Sam Darnold’s Scouting Report:
– PROS: Arm Talent, Play-Action Passing, Throwing Over The Middle, Mental Processing
– CONS: Decision Making, Holds The Ball, Pocket Presence, Pressure Management
– SPERRY’S TAKE: Tier 3 Franchise QB (Good Starter)

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PPG Trends:
– Seahawks Offense: 27.6
– Seahawks Defense: 19.4
– Commanders Offense: 23.4
– Commanders Defense: 24.8

Predict the score of Commanders vs. Seahawks!

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Seattle Seahawks 2025 Offense:
QB: Sam Darnold
LT: Charles Cross
LG: Grey Zabel
C: Jalen Sundell
RG: Anthony Bradford
RT: Abraham Lucas
WR1: Jaxson Smith-Njigba
WR2: Cooper Kupp
RB1: Kenneth Walker
RB2: Zach Charbonnet
TE: Elijah Arroyo

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