Former Washington HC Digs Into Commanders' Offensive Woes Following Cowboys Loss

The former head man in Washington examines what has happened to the Commanders' offense following their loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

May 10, 2019; Ashburn, VA, USA; Washington Redskins head coach Jay Gruden stands on the field during drills as part of rookie minicamp at Redskins Park. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

The Washington Commanders' offense got off to a fantastic start to the season under offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury and rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, but over the past few weeks through their three-game losing streak things have been bottled up a bit despite still being able to put points up on the board.

Over those past three games, the Commanders have lost two divisional matchups against the Eagles and Cowboys, further setting them back behind the eight ball to try and win the NFC East.

After a crushing defeat to the Cowboys where the offense failed to get much of anything going until the fourth quarter, former Washington head coach Jay Gruden spoke with Grant & Danny of 106.7 The Fan about why the offense has fallen off the way that it has in recent weeks.

“The last few minutes was pretty chaotic on both sides of the ball, but the first three quarters, I think was just a matter of taking advantage of great opportunities, and Washington didn’t do it,” Gruden said via Lou DiPietro of Audacy. “They had great field position, opportunities to really jump out on them early and put your foot down and show who’s a better team, and they didn’t do it. They just let Dallas hang around and hang around.”

Gruden, who spent time as the offensive coordinator in Cincinnati with the Bengals before going 35-49 as the head coach of the Redskins from 2014-2019 and then the offensive coordinator of the Jaguars in 2020, knows a bit about how offenses should run and put much of the offenses' onus on not being able to convert on meaningful downs, not being able to control time of possession and rookie mistakes from Jayden Daniels.

“Third downs are bad; they’re 12-for-38 in their last three games, 10 sacks, and time of possession. They’re averaging 24 minutes per game in the last- three games,” Gruden said. “A lot of that has to do with the ability to keep the ball, and they’re not staying on the field on third down. There’s a lot of reasons for it – sometimes it’s pressure related, sometimes Jayden misses a throw or there’s no throw to be had – so there’s a lot of things they can clean up, but the most important thing is they got to do a better job on third down.”

Gruden, who was critical of the problems within the offense, still noted that there are outlying factors that can contribute to this compounding of issues when trying to make some sort of reason out of why things have been so bad.

If the Commanders want to continue making noise in the league they will need to get these issues resolved sooner rather than later. They are details of the game and ones that likely help determine the outcome of a win or loss. The Commanders will look to get back to the simple things and will have a great chance to do so in their upcoming matchup against the Tennessee Titans.

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