The New-Look Commanders

 

The new and improved Washington Commanders have come out steaming to start the season. They go into Week 3 as one of the few undefeated teams left at 2-0 after playing some impressive games to open up their season. 

The Commanders went under a lot of drastic changes this offseason with the hiring of new ownership in particular, and the hiring of new offensive coordinator, Eric Bieniemy. Bieniemy had been the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs since 2018 and has been coaching in the NFL since 2006. In Kansas City, Bieniemy helped revitalize their offense and he is trying to do the exact same now in our nation's capital.

In Kansas City, Bieniemy transformed Patrick Mahomes into the best quarterback in football and was also a main contributor to bringing back two Super Bowl championships to Arrowhead. Now Bieniemy is bringing that same system over but this time with a different quarterback in Sam Howell. 

Howell, a second-year quarterback out of North Carolina, has had an impressive first two games in 2023, throwing for over 500 yards in his first two games. With Bieniemy as the offensive coordinator, the Commanders currently rank #7 in total offense, while just a year ago they were at the bottom of the NFL in that category at #24. 

Howell is a very talented quarterback and has some talented weapons surrounding him that he will be able to use throughout the season to his advantage. With Bieniemy at his side, this Commanders team could shock a lot of people this season. But, they do play in a very tough division with arguably two of the top three teams in the NFC in the Cowboys and Eagles. 

We've only seen two games with Howell at starting quarterback this year with Bieniemy on the sideline, but can Bieniemy transform Howell into an elite quarterback just like he did with Mahomes? If and once he does this, NFL teams are going to be knocking at his door to be the next head coach for their team as clearly he's too beneficial to a team to just be their offensive coordinator. I'm excited to see what Bieniemy has in store for this Commanders offense throughout the rest of the season.