WFT Talk: Logan Analyzes Logan

Washington Football Team expert Logan Paulsen analyzes another Logan, as in Thomas, on his breakout season ahead of a visit to the Niners

ASHBURN, Va. - One of the smartest players I've had the privilege to cover over a dozen years with the Washington Football Team is long-time NFL tight end Logan Paulsen. 

Why? He arrived as an undrafted free agent in 2010 out of UCLA and wasn't expected to turn that into a successful 10-year NFL career with Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Houston. But he did - because he was talented, but also thoughtful and thorough.

Paulsen is now an analyst on 106.7 The FAN and the Radio.com app, where we occasionally do some radio together. 

READ MORE: The WFT & the Power Rankings

And a topic of conversation for us: It's been a breakout season for another Logan, Logan Thomas, playing the position that the analyst, used to play here in Washington. 

Thomas racked up his fifth touchdown of the season last week (he had one career score before this year) and finished with nine catches on nine targets for just under one-hundred yards. 

The catch was the easiest part of what Thomas did. What Washington sold and how they designed it was the much better part, as Paulsen explains. 

The stacks and bunches that Paulsen points out in the video spurred a question for me to coach Ron Rivera about how difficult it is to defend stack formations and bunched receivers. 

READ MORE: Kyle Shanahan Says He Finally Has Closure? 

“The biggest thing more so than anything else is you’ve got to communicate," Rivera said. "You’ve got to make sure you talk about how you’re going to handle it. If you’re going to put a guy at the point to jam a guy at the point and then read off the other two if you’re going to have a guy jam at the point and he’s going to jam at the back guy, which of the two back guys is he going to have? 

"Are you going to play different levels? A lot of it depends on what routes they run out of the stack more so than anything else as well. Where’s your help so if you have help at certain positions, what’s your leverage? If you’ve got help inside, what’s your leverage? There’s a lot of ways to try to play it.”

READ MORE: Washington Banged Up on the O-Line

Paulsen also broke down how Washington surprisingly took advantage of a matchup that was supposed to favor Pittsburgh: Joe Haden vs. Cam Sims. 

Sims, much like Thomas, is having a career season, and both hope to continue that trend this Sunday in Glendale in a late afternoon start against the 49ers.