The Washington Commanders officially announced their 2024 coaching staff Thursday, and coordinators Kliff Kingsbury (offense) and Joe Whitt Jr. (defense) met with the local media.
A hot topic for Kingsbury was the quarterback position. Kingsbury has coached quarterbacks such as Patrick Mahomes, Johnny Manziel, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and, yes, presumed No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams. As expected, Kingsbury didn’t reveal much on that subject.
As for Whitt, he was direct, honest, passionate and enthusiastic.
Kingsbury didn’t give any details about the current roster, while Whitt did offer some details on some of Washington’s young players.
Here are five thoughts/takeaways from Kingsbury and Whitt’s media session.
Kingsbury looking forward to being in charge of the offense only
Kliff Kingsbury’s time as Arizona’s head coach didn’t go well. He wasn’t a disaster, but things fell apart for him during his final season in 2022. Last season, Kingsbury returned to the college game, working for Lincoln Riley at USC as an analyst.
He’s back in the NFL and is excited about handling the offense instead of the entire team.
“Being able to just focus on the offense will be great,” Kingsbury said. “Dan (Quinn) has a bunch on his plate. I’ve sat in that seat, and so you’re dealing with the entire picture. With me now, it’s focusing on that group and trying to maximize who we are personnel-wise, coaching staff-wise, and being the best we can just in that area. So, to be able to back up and do that again is exciting. To put all the focus just into that, and ready to get to work.”
Kingsbury’s hiring as a head coach again would have been ridiculed. However, many of his concepts are used in the college game and the NFL, so being able to focus solely on the offense will benefit Kingsbury and the Commanders.
Not a pure Air Raid offense
When you hear Kingsbury’s name, it’s most often associated with the Air Raid offense and the late Mike Leach. During his time with the Cardinals, Kingsbury’s offenses weren’t the league leaders in passing. He ran the ball a lot, particularly over his final two seasons.
While the Air Raid is a part of what Kingsbury will do, he thinks calling his current offense he’ll use with Washington the Air Raid isn’t necessarily accurate.
“Yeah, at Texas Tech, University of Houston, we had Case Keenum (Houston) and Patrick Mahomes (Texas Tech), so we were throwing it a ton and it was spread offense just like a lot of those are,” Kingsbury said. “You go the NFL, learn the nature of the game and the different personnel groups and the matchups and things like that. And I’m not sure where we were on pass percentage my last three years there, but I know it wasn’t at the top. So, we want to be balanced. We want to be able to run the football and play-action pass and really do whatever it takes to win. But the Air Raid deal is, I’m honored to be a part of that because it was Mike Leach, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him, but I wouldn’t categorize anything we do under that name.”
Collaborative effort
Aligned vision is a term we’ve heard often under new GM Adam Peters and head coach Dan Quinn. Kingsbury alluded to that on Thursday, calling the coaching staff, with so many big names and experienced coaches, a “collaborative effort.”
“It was a collaborative effort with Dan, obviously, and Adam,” Kingsbury said. “We wanted to bring a bunch of high-character people and good football coaches, and we have some former head coaches and former offensive coordinators, so I’m excited to put the offense together. I think anytime you get a chance to reinstall your offense, you can be more efficient with your processes and your verbiage, and your play calls and scheme. And so, we’re going to all dive into it and figure out kind of what we do best personnel-wise and grow it from there.”
A refreshing perspective indeed.
Joe Whitt Jr: 'The ball is life'
No team in the NFL has forced more turnovers than the Dallas Cowboys over the past three seasons, and it’s not close. Quinn, Whitt, and their coaching staff preached that philosophy.
“You’ll hear me talk all the time; the ball is life,” Whitt said. “Alright, and so, it is like are, and we got to have it, we gotta get it. Most drills that you see on the field will end with some kind of guy catching the ball, picking the ball off a fumble. Just understanding that how to get the ball out from a punch, a rake or what have you, we’re going to attack the ball every kind of way we can in practice, so it translates to the game.”
Washington’s practices should be fun and full of energy.
It's all about play style, not scheme specific
For too many years, Washington fans have obsessed with the 3-4 defense or the 4-3 defense. Far too often, the Commanders either didn’t have the personnel to run the 3-4 or the coaching to execute the scheme properly.
For Quinn and Whitt, it’s about the style of play, not necessarily the scheme.
“One thing I could tell you, like Dan said, is more about the play style than anything else,” Whitt said. “We’re gonna get that right first, and one thing that we’re gonna do is we’re gonna be a run and hit defense. We’re gonna run, and I just told this to our staff, the defensive staff, we had our first staff meeting. The way we live is not for everybody, ok? It is not alright, because we’re gonna run and put our bodies on people in a violent manner. And so, we’re gonna get that play style right first. And then the structure of what we do doesn’t really matter. You know, 3-4, 4-3, everybody plays the same coverages to some point. The structure doesn’t matter to me. The main thing that matters to me is, are we going to be arriving violently?”
We hear every time a new coach or player has an introductory press conference that they “won” the presser. Whitt knocked the presser out of the park, and he wasn’t trying. He’s authentic. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone — yet impressed everyone.
