Keys to Reviving the Commanders' Rushing Attack

Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. has set a career-high in the wrong way this season.

Dec 15, 2024; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. (8) rushes against New Orleans Saints cornerback Will Harris (5) during the first half at Caesars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Washington Commanders' running back Brian Robinson Jr. was not very happy despite his team's 36-22 win over the Philadelphia Eagles last week.

His two fumbles lost in the game helped put his team in a deep hole early, and it was nearly one that the Commanders couldn't dig themselves out of.

In fact, you could argue that if the Eagles held the ball for just 10 seconds longer at any point during the game Washington likely would have lost, and Robinson would have been a main character in that tragedy.

But as the team sets out this weekend to find a way to make their rushing attack a successful focal point of their strategy once again, it's not all on Robinson.

Dec 15, 2024; New Orleans, Louisiana, USA; Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. (8) rushes against New Orleans Saints cornerback Will Harris (5) during the first half at Caesars Superdome. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Lew-Imagn Images / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

The Steady Decline

If you look at it from raw data, things don't look bad. The Commanders rank 5th in rushing yards per carry and 3rd in rushing yards per game this season. But that's counting quarterback Jayden Daniels.

Removing Daniels from the equation and focusing just on the running backs, Washington still has a solid overall ranking among NFL backfields. The last few weeks, however, have not been kind to that standing.

In the last five games of the season, Robinson has achieved a four-yards-per-carry average or better in a single game just once. Meanwhile, he's failed to reach even 3.5 yards per carry in three of those outings.

At the lowest point, he rushed for just 24 yards on 10 carries last weekend against the Eagles. It was the fourth time this season he failed to reach three yards per carry in a game, a career-high for one year. Combine that with the two fumbles lost, and you can understand Robinson's stress and frustrations.

Like we said, however, Robinson is not carrying this water by himself.

The Offensive Line

There's talent on the Commanders' offensive line, there's no doubt about that. The question isn't whether or not there's ability; it's a matter of execution and associated production.

When pulling up the starting offensive line's run-blocking grades via Pro Football Focus, there's a troubling trend. As the season wears on, it appears the offensive line is wearing down.

This isn't completely out of the blue, of course. Early in the season, the Washington offense ran best when Robinson and the offensive line were establishing a power run game that gained as much for itself as it punished opponents for trying to stop it. The end result was an often exhausted line group that proudly wore the badge of physical punishment in the name of getting their team a much-needed victory.

The price, it would seem, maybe the inability to sustain such an effort for the duration of the season. And if the offensive line can't block as effectively, physically, then it is going to be really hard for Robinson – or any other ball-carrier not named Daniels – to get back on track.

Mentality Matters

There's another part of athletic performance that needs to be discussed here, though, and that's the brain power behind all of this.

In the early going the offensive line was not only happy to take the punishment but was able to do it over and over again because it was effective. The team was winning, and winning makes all bruises heal just a bit faster, it seems.

Averaging four yards per carry four times in the first seven games the stats were piling up and even in the games where Robinson didn't hit that mark his team was winning more than losing and he was getting key short-yardage gains that produced big results for the offense.

The team hit a skid, losing three in a row, including heartbreakers to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys. The running game struggled to maintain its pace, especially as Robinson's body bore the toll of better rushing days.

Those types of things can cause doubt, which can lead to hesitation, which can lead to missed blocks or lanes, which then feed back into doubt.

"Over the last two weeks, it's really important to us. We knew from Philadelphia there might be some runs that were not there to allow some play passes to get extended that way. But, it is one of the areas that we got to dig in hard on, as we said, 'When we get to the truth, what's the ones to improve upon? Going into it. That's, that's one of our areas for sure,” coach Dan Quinn shared when asked if he's concerned at all about the decline of his rushing attack.

He followed up on that quote with another the next day before practice. "We've got a smart crew and so the pass protection, the blitz pickups I think is good. I said, 'I wanna make sure we don't miss the aggressive part of it, of thinking to this, what could happen here, what could happen there. Like let's make sure we're sprinting off the ball into our contact.' And so that was the message I wanted to give because these are sharp guys. If this guy aligns here, we wanna check to this guy. I said, 'Sometimes guys, make the mistake, make it full speed. If they do something different, that's okay.' And so I wanna make sure that's what we see this weekend. Just that type of commitment off the ball. They're tough, they're physical. I said, 'Don't overthink this thing, man. Like we all have a tendency in anything to do that. Let's make sure they feel our pads, our physicality.'"

The Road Ahead

It looks like Washington is destined for playoff football this season, and that's never bad news. However, if there is an aspect of the decline of this team's rushing attack that is tied to physical or mental fatigue, it can turn into a season-killer with the quickness.

Daniels has been 'putting on the cape' more and more as of late. For the first time Quinn publicly declared that his rookie quarterback is now a leader on this football team, and he's not the only one.

There's no way the offensive line is going to let it become the catalyst to an early departure in the postseason, and no way Robinson himself is going to allow one bad game to snowball into a bad ending to the season.

The trick is recapturing the mentality and success that drove the team early on and then finding a way to keep it, even when the opponent does what they're paid to do.

Play faster, get angry, and find a combination of the two. Whatever it is, Washington is going to need its ground game at some point this season in a critical space. When that time comes, we'll find out just how much these messages are turning into action.

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