Washington Football Team 2020 – Is There Any Electricity? Part 1
July 30, 2020
By Noonefromtampa
Electricity is the flow of positively and negatively charged particles. Electricity can deliver great power and electricity mishandled can cause serious injury. In sports, lack of electricity can doom a team to a long season with unhappy fans.
Will the Washington Football Team have any good electricity this season? In this column we’ll look some negatives and positives of the upcoming season. This will be in two parts, the first covering coaching staff and the defensive side of the ball. The second part will cover the offensive side of the team. I’ll also give you the links to The Hog Sty’s detailed position reviews.
Coaching Staff
There are only two coaching holdovers from last year’s staff, Nate Kaczor and Randy Jordan. Both the offensive and defensive schemes have changed. Under former head coach Jay Gruden, the offense was productive, but the defenses were not and the team lacked discipline overall. Scott Turner is a young offensive coach who doesn’t have a large body of work to evaluate but he learned from one of the best, his father, former Redskins coach Norv Turner. John Matsko is an excellent offensive line coach with an extensive history of developing offensive linemen. Jack Del Rio has a large body of work to evaluate and there is hope his unit here will be very productive. The change to a 4-3 defense seems to better suit many of the players on the roster. Chris Harris is an interesting choice as defensive backs coach – he’s a former All-Pro safety who played for the head coach, Ron Rivera, in Carolina and brings a former player’s perspective to a young group of players. Rivera is known to be a tough but fair head coach who doesn’t tolerate nonsense from his players. What has the first year after a coaching change brought the team? Over the last 40 years it has looked like this:
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| Coach | Wins | Loses |
| Gruden | 4 | 12 |
| Shanahan | 6 | 10 |
| Zorn | 8 | 8 |
| Gibbs | 6 | 10 |
| Spurrier | 7 | 9 |
| Schottenheimer | 8 | 8 |
| Turner | 3 | 13 |
| Petitbon | 4 | 12 |
| Gibbs | 8 | 8 |
| Average | 6 | 10 |
The best were the eight win seasons from Zorn and Schottenheimer and the worst was Turner’s three-win season, with an average of six wins.
Coaching Staff Rating: Positive (+)
Defensive Line
This unit had the fewest changes since last year, with Jonathan Allen, Ryan Bee, Caleb Brantley, Matthew Ioannidis, Tim Settle, Ryan Kerrigan, Montez Sweat, Nate Orchard, and Daron Payne all returning. Last year’s late round pick, Jordan Brailford, will be back from injured reserve and the team drafted Chase Young with the second pick in the draft, plus James Smith-Williams late in the draft. Gone are marginal players like Treyvon Hester, Noah Spence, and Chris Odom. On paper, this is the strongest unit on the team in terms of talent and depth. The final roster will have probably eight defensive linemen, so not everyone is going to make the 53-man team, but expect the players remaining to be rotated and kept fresh. A huge key to this season is whether this group will be able to stop the run and generate an effective pass rush.
Stat to watch: Can Young beat Brian Okrapo’s rookie record of 11 sacks?
Defensive Line Rating: Positive (+)
Hog Sty Position Review – Defensive Line
Linebackers
The change from a 3-4 to a 4-3 defense has the biggest impact on the linebacker group because it requires a different mix of players and skill sets. The Washington Football Team re-signed Jonathan Bostic and have Ryan Anderson, Shaun Dion Hamilton, Josh Harvey-Clemons, and Cole Holcomb all returning. Whether Reuben Foster will be able to play again after his horrific leg injury suffered on the first day of OTAs last year is still unknown, but the team put him on the PUP list to start camp. The team added Thomas Davis Sr. and Kevin Pierre-Louis and drafted Khaleke Hudson from Michigan. The starters from this group are likely Davis, Bostic and Holcomb, but there are more questions than answers right now until the players physically are on the field. Expect a lot of competition in this group as coaches evaluate players and try to determine which players match which roles on defense.
Linebacker Rating: Negative (-)
Hog Sty Position Review – Linebackers
Secondary
When the main story is that both starting cornerbacks and your free safety from last year’s team are no longer with the team, that’s usually a problem straightaway. But when those three are Montae Nicholson, Quinton Dunbar and Josh Norman, each with their respective on- and off-field issues, it doesn’t seem as bad. The secondary got a major overhaul during the offseason, with the team signing cornerbacks Kendall Fuller and Ronald Darby, plus free safety Sean Davis to play alongside holdover starter Landon Collins. Returning players include Troy Apke, Aaron Colvin, Deshazor Everett, Danny Johnson, Fabian Moreau, Greg Stroman, Jimmy Moreland, Jeremy Reaves, and Simeon Thomas. They also added Kamren Curl in the draft. So, the end result is a crew of veteran starters who haven’t played together before, plus a lot of young secondary players, some of whom will need to step up and perform for this unit to be effective.
Secondary Rating: Negative (-)
Hog Sty Position Review – Cornerbacks
Hog Sty Position Review – Safeties
Special Teams
All three key starters return, long snapper Nick Sundberg, All-Pro punter Tress Way and kicker Dustin Hopkins. Important decisions to be made is to identify the primary kick returner and punt returner. Options for those roles include Steven Sims Jr, Isaiah Wright and Antonio Gibson.
Special Teams Rating: Positive (+)
HogSty Position Review – Special Teams
Next up – Part 2 Offensive Position Groups.