HH: Honestly, I think the coaching has looked very similar to last year, with a lot of the same buy-in and effort from players, but also a lot of the same mistakes. It wasn’t just Jayden Daniels, a lot of the team looked like they were shaking off rust in weeks 1 & 2, which is probably partly due to Dan Quinn’s preference for light practices over training camp and resting starters in preseason games to keep them healthy. It’s also probably partly due to having lots of roster turnover in the offseason the last 2 years, as this roster is still very much being rebuilt from a terrible state in the Ron Rivera years.
It’s clear the defensive coaching staff (including Quinn) want to play primarily man coverage, but don’t have the personnel for it. Both last year and this year the secondary got torched in the first few games by trying to play man coverage with players (particularly older players) who are better suited to zone. Both last year and this year, they started to adjust to playing more zone in week 4, but there are still some busted coverages that may not have been there if they’d focused on installing a primarily zone scheme in training camp. Overall, I wish the coaching staff (particularly the defensive coaching staff) would do a better job of self-scouting and tailoring the scheme to the players in the offseason.
On the plus side, the special teams coaching looks much improved, though it may just be due to better personnel and another year working together. Washington has the 3rd highest special teams DVOA according to FTN, which includes the 6th-most yards gained on punt returns, 4th-fewest punt return yards allowed, NFL-highest yards gained on kick returns, and 11th-fewest kick return yards allowed.