Commanders senior offensive assistant Jim Hostler constantly has himself involved in two projects.
“I spend a little bit more time on game planning ahead of the teams we play. That allows [OC] Scotty [Turner] obviously to be in the moment of the game he’s calling that week, and I’m just a little bit ahead of him when we start on Monday and Tuesday with the game planning.
We've promoted Jim Hostler to Senior Offensive Assistant and Drew Terrell to Wide Receivers Coach.
📰 » https://t.co/XlbHlCqHd2 pic.twitter.com/OcxmrKefHK
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) February 5, 2021
Secondly, Hostler helps out with the wide receivers helping coach the routes, and the concepts if they have any questions. He is glad to free up Turner in both ways.
Hostler likes the depth that’s developed at the wide receiver position.
“I feel good about it. I think we’ve done a good job of bringing the players in, drafting the young players that we have, and defining what they could do before we got ’em here. Then the ability for us to try to use ’em in their capacities. We’ve got a group that any of ’em can play. Even the young down-the-line guys. We don’t have any fear right now of putting ’em in the games.”
Hostler was asked about his scouting teams in advance.
“I’m not really looking at numbers or anything like that. I’m just looking at them as a defense. What do they do? How we’re gonna attack it. Obviously, when you start game planning next week, Scotty’s window of preparation for the game planning is a lot smaller than mine is because I can spend two or three days from the previous week working on the next opponent.”
Hostler is comfortable in this role, having much NFL experience doing the same type of activity.
I’ve done this several times. I did it in Buffalo for [Broncos Head Coach] Nathaniel [Hackett]. That’s where I first started doing it. It’s the same role, and I did it in Green Bay. When I was in Green Bay that was my role there, so that’s kind of the reason why we sort of did what we did. Obviously, we did what we did because we loved [wide receivers coach] Drew [Terrell] and know how good of a coach Drew is as a young coach.”
The role means, for Hostler, forcing himself to move on to the next opponent by midweek.
“We spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then obviously you’re practicing Wednesday, early down kinds of things. Then you’re practicing situational offense on Thursday and Friday and usually that’s all done by Wednesday night. There’s a little bit of stuff done on Thursday, but usually after Wednesday nights the meetings are over, and I’m on to the next opponent.”
