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Sports Illustrated
Takeaways: How Jayden Daniels and the Commanders Are Building on Last Season’s Success

[T]he Commanders brass’s first move was to start talking with Taylor Kelly, the coach at 3DQB (and former Arizona State quarterback) whom Daniels works with in Orange County.

The goal was to establish, first and foremost, a commonality in language. In other words, Washington wanted Kelly to dovetail the way he talks with how Kingsbury talks, so as they worked through Daniels’s rookie year and fundamental work, Kelly would be able to talk to Daniels on his level, and Daniels would eventually be able to take his work back to D.C. with him without a hitch.

There were also some of the normal mechanical things everyone felt like Daniels would benefit from working on. Refining his lower body movement on certain throws—something quarterbacks are always working on—was one thing. Working on some specifics on throws to Daniels’s left, and his arm angle on those throws, was another.

Meanwhile, Kingsbury and the rest of the offensive staff resolved to condense the offense and grow the things the Commanders did well, and throw out some of the things they didn’t in 2024. The idea was to get razor sharp, rather than too complex, with the offense’s strengths, giving the players the spring to hone that.

The byproduct of that process, as spring began, was giving Daniels added command with his teammates, since he’d already mastered what had been taught, which naturally allowed him to take another step forward from a leadership standpoint. Furthering that was the team’s ability to hang on to Kingsbury, pass-game coordinator Brian Johnson and QBs coach Tavita Pritchard, as well as backup Marcus Mariota, making it easy for the entire quarterbacks room to hit the ground running when the offseason program started in April and OTAs began in May.

On top of that, Daniels had teammates out to Oregon for a passing camp before all that, and plans to have them in California for another one before training camp starts.

The overarching idea here is pretty obvious, of course—for everyone to be firing on all cylinders when the pads go on five weeks from now. And judging by how fast everything’s gone to this point with Daniels, that should be something to see.

Bullock’s Film Room (subscription)
WR Noah Brown ready for important role in Commanders offense, if healthy

During the last week of OTAs, the Commanders suffered an unfortunate injury to wide receiver Noah Brown. Brown was reportedly carted off the practice field but there’s been no update regarding the injury. Being carted off the field led to a lot of speculation about who might replace Brown if he is seriously injured, but reports suggest the injury may not actually be that serious due to the lack of an update.

That’s obviously good news for Brown and the Commanders if the injury isn’t serious, but the situation prompted me to think about Brown and his role within the offense. When considering who might replace him, I rewatched some of his film from last year to see just where he was successful and his role within the offense, at first to see how they might go about trying to replace him if injured. But when reports suggested the injury might not be serious, I came to appreciate just how important Brown could be this season.

It’s easy to forget that Brown was a very late addition to the team last year. He was with the Texans through their training camp and preseason last year before being waived as part of roster cut downs. The Commanders picked him up a few days later and ended up one of the Commanders most productive receivers despite getting hurt and missing a good chunk of the season. He had 35 catches for 453 yards and an unforgettable walk off touchdown against the Bears on the miracle hail mary play. He did all that despite not being with the team throughout the offseason and having to play catch up both in terms of learning the offense and building a connection with Jayden Daniels.

That connection with Daniels came quickly though, much quicker than expected. One of the primary reasons for that was Brown’s route running. He’s not a dynamic receiver in terms of his athleticism or explosiveness, but he is a veteran that understands how to run his routes to attack leverage and set up defenders.

Washington Times

I haven’t tried to get many city governments to put up $1.1 billion in taxpayer funds to help build a football stadium. Maybe I’m missing something here.

But if I were trying to win over support to get the biggest public handout in the history of the District, I would enlist the aid of Magic.

I’m sure council members and staffers were properly impressed when the new owner and NFL commissioner visited their offices in the Wilson Building following the press conference.

But if Magic was along for that visit, there would have been hundreds of pictures that would have likely wound up tagged on the social media accounts of those who might affect the outcome of a vote to support this multi-billion project for them to see every day, and stories to tell friends and family members about the time they met the five-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer.

When Magic was announced as part of the group assembled by Harris to pay $6 billion to Dan Snyder to buy the football team, some believed that his presence would be a huge asset when it came time to try to get a stadium built in the District.

He showed up for probably the biggest business deal the team made since the purchase of the franchise when they had a press conference in September before the game with the New York Giants announcing a new stadium naming rights deal with Northwest Federal Credit Union. But not for the announcement of the business deal that could change the history of the franchise — a new stadium.

[Mayor Muriel Bowser] said the Commanders are “outraged” at the possibility of a delay and that it “sacrifices our exclusive seat at the table and $2.7 billion in private investment … the time is now to act.”

This is political bluster. The Commanders aren’t going anywhere. I thought that the existing site on land the team already owns in Landover would be the favored location, given it remains the path of least resistance.

But that was before I knew the District stadium deal included a bag of real estate cash the city will hand over to the team — acres of prime real estate beyond the stadium for the Commanders to develop and reap the very lucrative financial rewards from. They are not walking away from that.

But if there is a sense of real urgency, it would seem like a good idea to have a powerful figure like Magic Johnson making a personal stadium pitch to District officials.

The Athletic (paywall)
What we learned from NFL offseason workouts: One key observation for every team
Washington Commanders

The Commanders’ cornerback room has a chance to be much improved. At this time last year, Benjamin St-Juste, Emmanuel Forbes Jr. and Michael Davis were the top outside options. All are justifiably gone, but their woes led to shifting rookie Mike Sainristil from the slot to the boundary and making a trade deadline deal for an injured Marshon Lattimore, who proceeded to struggle in the playoffs. Injuries have haunted Lattimore, but he arrived healthy for minicamp following needed rest. If available weekly, the four-time Pro Bowler and second-round rookie Trey Amos have potential as a viable tag-team against the NFC East’s star receivers. Ex-Patriot Jonathan Jones brings quality experience to the mix along with Sainristil, who may shift back to his natural inside role after impressing in his first season. — Ben Standig

Commanders.com

Luvu has ‘unfinished business’ in Year 2 with Washington

Frankie Luvu is happy, but not satisfied, with how things went for him during his first season with the Washington Commanders.

Luvu, who signed a multi-year deal with Washington last offseason, had perhaps the best season of his career with the Burgundy & Gold. He racked up his best stats in several categories, all while becoming an emotional leader for his teammates during their NFC Championship run.

But Luvu isn’t dwelling on the past. The standards for him and his teammates have risen, and that means he needs to take his skill set to another level.

“I know it’s unfinished business,” Luvu told Bryan Colbert Jr. “We left a lot out there last year, but last year was last year. This year is a new beginning, new start.”

Podcasts & videos
First Round Pick Josh Conerly Jr. IS a Commander | RHWTR | Washington Commanders | NFL Draft

Talking about the run defense: why they’re confident it’ll be improved (it has to be). Some keys to success for the Commanders’ run D this season. How Jordan Magee can help. The DL is bigger. More. @ESPNRichmond https://t.co/DNmKLgiPKw

— John Keim (@john_keim) June 24, 2025

NFC East links
NFL.com
QB Russell Wilson says he chose Giants to play with ‘special’ WR Malik Nabers

He signed with the Giants because he liked who his top target would be in New York: second-year wideout Malik Nabers.

“I came here because of him,” Wilson said during a panel at Fanatics Fest over the weekend, via Empire Sports Media’s Anthony Rivardo. “I really wanted to play with someone who is special like him.”

Now, it’s up to Wilson to prove he can be another good thing for a Giants club that could use some of it under center. The Giants have cycled through numerous quarterbacks since Eli Manning retired, and once it became clear Jones wasn’t the answer, they were forced to find a veteran to fill the starting role. Along the way, they added two: Wilson and Jameis Winston. And to ensure they’ve covered their bases, they spent a first-round pick on Ole Miss product Jaxson Dart, filling out the quarterbacks room with short- and long-term options.

For Wilson, he’s on a one-year deal. All that matters is 2025.

Blogging the Boys
3 Cowboys players facing a make or break season in 2025
DT Mazi Smith

Anyone else surprised to see Mazi Smith make this list? Probably not. Sadly, Dallas’ 2023 first-round pick as of yet hasn’t lived up to his draft status. Playing for different defensive coordinators in each of his first two seasons with the Cowboys probably didn’t help his development, which puts into question how he’ll perform with his third DC in three years (Matt Eberflus). If he doesn’t take a significant jump during his ever important Year 3, he could be playing elsewhere as soon as next season.

NFL league links
Articles
RotoWire
NFL Aggression Rankings 2025: Most Fearless Teams by 4th-Down Calls, Blitz Rates & Trick Plays

Utilizing a weighted scoring system, RotoWire.com developed the most aggressive NFL teams based on their ranking across the NFL in the following categories:

4th-Down Attempts Per Game
2-Point Conversion Attempts Per Game
Trick / Fake Plays Per Game
Onside Kick Attempts Per Game
Blitz Percentage On Defense

*Note: RotoWire.com attempted to eliminate any attempts that were deemed “necessary” for a team to win a game

Quinn Makes Early Impact on Commanders

“Riverboat Dan” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but Commanders coach Dan Quinn has been every bit as aggressive as his predecessor Ron Rivera. QB Jayden Daniels’ dual-threat skill set encourages aggressive play calling in short-yardage situations, and Daniels completed all eight of his fourth-down pass attempts in his rookie campaign.

Discussion topics

The Athletic (paywall)
AI is coming to the NFL, and it could transform the game

The large language models that power most AI and machine learning “don’t know how to watch football yet, but I think with some work, they can be taught to watch football,” said Udit Ranasaria, a senior researcher at SumerSports, one of a handful of companies developing artificial intelligence tools with the potential to reshape professional football. “We can get to a place where we have something like ChatGPT that understands what’s happening in the NFL.”

It probably won’t take long, said Guttag, who leads the school’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Data Driven Inference Group and has co-presented several papers about the uses of machine learning in the NBA and Major League Baseball. In 2020, he was the thesis supervisor for a 55-page dissertation written by Udgam Goyal titled “Leveraging Machine Learning to Predict Playcalling Tendencies in the NFL.”

“A big branch of artificial intelligence from almost the beginning has been computer vision, trying to get computers to see things and figure out what is in the image,” Guttag said. But football is a more complex problem for computer vision than basketball, baseball or soccer because of the proximity of players to the line of scrimmage and the variance in personnel.

“Fourth-and-1 with Mike Vick and Alge Crumpler looks a lot different than fourth-and-1 with Kirk Cousins and Kyle Pitts,” said Omar Ajmeri, the CEO and co-founder of Slants, which uses machine learning to pull scouting information from football film.

Current artificial intelligence is capable of “watching” game film from two teams, formulating a game plan and printing out call sheets for offensive and defensive coordinators, said Vishakh Sandwar, one half of the winning team at this year’s Big Data Bowl, which is sponsored by the NFL. “It’s just a matter of the quality at this point,” he said.

“Over time, it will get better and better,” Guttag said. “And what you’ll do is say, ‘Here are all the series that led to first downs. Here are all the series that didn’t lead to first downs. What are the important differences?’ — without hypothesizing before. You’ll just let the AI machine learning look at all that data and say, ‘Here are some interesting differences.’ One of the great things about machine learning is it finds things you didn’t know were there.”

All aTwitter

Deebo Samuel has led the NFL in YAC/rec for 5 STRAIGHT YEARS!

while Deebo has dealt with injuries & fallen back in some aspects, he still brings the YAC:

2024: 8.3 YAC/rec, #1 of 64
2023: 8.8 YAC/rec, #1 of 61
2022: 8.8 YAC/rec, #1 of 68
2021: 10.0 YAC/rec, #1 of 67
2020: 12.1… https://t.co/kQsWoCeXJW

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) June 23, 2025

Commanders unveiled the Bobby Beathard Draft Room today at their OrthoVirginia Training Center. Beathard is considered the most successful general manager in Washington’s history, he’s a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the work space is now a tribute to his legacy. pic.twitter.com/6cCGTHYzV7

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 24, 2025

New York Jets owner Woody Johnson has agreed on a $254 million deal to buy a 43% stake in Premier League team Crystal Palace from American businessman John Textor.https://t.co/lyVmugL3td

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 23, 2025

The Commanders took them all out! I can’t wait to watch that! #RaiseHail

— Dean Speer Jr (@dspeer26) June 24, 2025

Yikes: Brandon Aiyuk is NOT happy with the 49ers going OFF on the team through his YouTube channel.

“Talking bout trading me while I was off p**cocets / muscle relaxers & peeing in a cup by my bed! Couldn’t walk for 10 weeks ain’t nobody trading for me”

Aiyuk is always starting… pic.twitter.com/HKlKAgsdzy

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) June 24, 2025