The Commanders looked like a team of amateurs on Friday night vs the Patriots. Here are ten things I took away from the game.
It was awful. The first look of the Commanders in the 2025 preseason was decidedly terrible, with hardly any positives to mention. Yes, the Patriots played starters in the first quarter. No matter what that gives them an advantage, so you can expect they will have their way somewhat. In preseason you do want to see that so you can see the level of your backups against someone else’s starters.
And our backups largely got shoved around, beaten to the marks, and embarrassed. And then their backups came in and shoved them around, beat them to the marks, and continued to embarrass them. It is preseason, and preseason is to help work through mistakes and practice execution at game speed. And the Commanders have a lot of work to do.
Ten takeaways, with the usual caveats that preseason is vanilla, boiled down basic football, nothing like the regular season. But you know that.
Preseason game 1: Ten takeaways
That was awful. The first look of the Commanders in the 2025 preseason was decidedly terrible, with hardly any positives to mention. Yes, the Patriots played starters in the first quarter. No matter what that gives them an advantage, so you can expect they will have their way somewhat. In preseason you do want to see that so you can see the level of your backups against someone else’s starters.
And our backups largely got shoved around, beaten to the marks, and embarrassed. And then their backups came in and shoved them around, beat them to the marks, and continued to embarrass them. It is preseason, and preseason is to help work through mistakes and practice execution at game speed. And the Commanders have a lot of work to do.
Ten takeaways, with the usual caveats that preseason is vanilla, boiled down basic football, nothing like the regular season. But you know that.
- So, up front, 30 guys didn’t play. This definitely makes a difference but given how badly the rest of the team played as a whole, it makes me a little nervous. Two big possibilities that I can see existing are
- The starters, while better, are coached by the same people, and many of the players I watched in New England lacked effort. They were plain out-hustled. This brings to me a twinge of fear that the team has spent the offseason reading their press.
- Last year the Commanders were relatively injury free, and that also makes a difference. As is obvious, the backups need work, because the chance that any of them may have to play is high.
- .Special teams, just atrocious, not at all forgivable. Long returns, missed field goals, poor coverages, sloppy. Special teams, as we all know, is the gateway to the roster for a lot of these young players. And they were abused. Sloppy, undisciplined, just breakdowns in every conceivable way. (Except for the steady Tress Way.)
Larry Izzo needs to kick so many asses so hard this week that his foot swells up. Or, he needs to bend over and prepare to be kicked to the curb. THAT is how bad they were. Yes, preseason. And yes, it doesn’t matter. It was a complete failure. - Terry gained the tiniest bit of leverage. WRs dropping balls all over the place. Granted we are looking at WR4 on down, but they have to catch the damn ball.
GRANTED again (this word gets used a lot in preseason), Sam Hartman and Josh Johnson are not throwing well. More on that in a minute. But when the ball hits the hands, it has to be caught. Beyond that, New England’s coverage was sticky and harassing the receiver at the catch point more often than not, and way more often than not, our guy failed to make the catch. So not only did they not catch it in traffic, they were largely unable to shake anyone and gain separation all game. - Camp names we’d been hearing good things about showed they are either needing to retire (Chris Moore) or are not ready at all (Car’lin Vigers). Who-The-Hell-is-That TE Lawrence Cager had the best separation of the night when he hauled in Josh Johnson’s best pass of the game for a good gain to get us down inside the 5 and set up Jeremy McNichols’ touchdown.
Sam Hartman on the sidelines before the game.
5. Quarterback play was not good. I was soundly ridiculed on the podcast for dreaming that with a good showing Sam Hartman could maybe fetch a decent draft pick, as high as a 3rd. (Hey, I was DREAMING!) And as it turns out, we’d probably have to give someone a 3rd to take him. Saying he was stiff is an understatement. He was robotic, but robotic like one of those robots from a 1956 movie that was just some stagehand in a cardboard suit.
Josh Johnson showed why he is constantly fighting for a 3rd spot on all of the rosters he’s been on. Poor accuracy. He had time but just missed. Neither one of them are making the team, and chances are good that if the worst happens and we need one later in the season, they will be available.
6. Running backs.. Bill looked as shifty and quick as advertised, but not much daylight for him to exploit. Chris Rodriguez did himself no favors. The hard runs we’ve enjoyed watching just weren’t materializing. McNichols played alright, but given the level of competition he faced and when he was put in the game tells me he is squarely on the bubble.
7. Overall energy was VERY low. No hustle, no pop. Second half defense was smacked in the mouth over and over. New England looked like they had guys trying to make a football team, our guys looked like the meatbag wrasslers put in the ring so the upcoming stars get an easy win. In all candor, it would not shock me to find out they all had colds or something. They were just slow and lethargic.
8. Johnny Newton was far and away the best guy we put on the field. In just 15 snaps he bottled the middle, created excellent penetration, got a tackle for loss, a sack, and forced a fumble on a terrific stunt. (Credit goes to veteran Jacob Martin for a great move to tie up his and Newton’s block to allow Johnny to get to the outside free to attack Maye. Not only did he tie up the blocks, but he penetrated enough to force Maye out into Newton, and the sack caused the fumble. The best defensive snap of the night)
9. There are a hundred excuses that can be made for the performance. And none of them matter. First preseason game doesn’t matter when it is THAT bad. Not the score, but the overall effort, energy, execution and desire were severely lacking. Many of these guys need better performances to make this team. And I am having a hard time coming up with one of them who gave what you want to see.
10. The coaches should not be listening to any of the excuses. Basic football competence is the least that should be expected. And we didn’t get that.
