The Washington Commanders are heading into Week 1 with something the Philadelphia Eagles can’t study, chart, or game-plan around: a real lack of evidence.
That’s the edge in Sunday’s NFC East matchup. David Blough and Daronte Jones are both stepping into their first NFL regular season games as coordinators, which means the Eagles are walking into this one without the usual stack of tendencies that make divisional scouting so familiar.
Philadelphia has spent months preparing for what Washington might show. Washington, by contrast, has been able to keep things mostly under wraps.
Blough didn’t exactly hand over any clues when he met with reporters Thursday. Asked how much of the offense Washington revealed during the preseason, he laughed and kept it short.
“Not much,” Blough said.
Jones also kept his cards close when asked about his defense. Washington has spent the offseason building a new system, but the Eagles won’t really know what it looks like until the real thing starts Sunday.
That matters most on the offensive side, where Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio can study Blough’s influences, examine Washington’s personnel, and make educated guesses about how Jayden Daniels will be used. What he can’t do is look back on a regular-season trail of Blough calling plays. There’s no history to mine for third-and-four, no red-zone pattern to pick apart, no long paper trail of what he prefers after a turnover.
Dan Quinn said earlier this week that kind of uncertainty can help Washington.
“I think there’s advantages for sure,” Quinn said. “As the season begins, there’s not a tendency; there’s not a ‘This is what he does on second down or third down, this is the scheme you know from years past.’”
Still, that same mystery cuts both ways. Blough and Jones have never handled this job in a regular-season NFL game, and Fangio is one of the league’s most seasoned defensive coordinators. Once the game starts, Washington’s new play callers will have to adjust on the fly to whatever he throws at them.
And this won’t last long. Every snap on Sunday becomes new film.
Every third down, every formation, every blitz, every personnel grouping gives future opponents more to work with. A few weeks from now, the scouting report will look very different.
For now, though, Philadelphia doesn’t have that file.
The Eagles may still bring the better roster into Sunday and more experience in key spots. But Washington has something preparation can’t fully recreate.
The unknown.
Now the Commanders have to use it before it disappears.
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Still, the path from speculation to reality looks extremely narrow right now. Shanahan is under contract, has his own history with the organization, and his career has long pointed in a different direction than a return to Washington in either a head coach or offensive coordinator role. For now, there have been no official moves or decisions, which leaves this as more of a fan-friendly debate than a true pursuit, even if it is the kind of possibility Commanders supporters will keep talking about. [Read more 🡒]