After winning 12 games in 2024 and reaching the NFC Championship Game, the Washington Commanders won only five contests in 2025. While there were many reasons for the dropoff (e.g., talent level, injuries), poor coaching loomed large. So what next? One answer is David Blough.
It’s surprising to identify “coaching” as a problem for the Commanders, given that at one point the team had one of the best coaching staffs in NFL history. The 2013 Washington coaching staff is frequently mentioned for its talent level, and for good reason.
Five coaches from that staff have become head coaches: Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Raheem Morris, Matt LaFleur, and Mike McDaniel. Shanahan and McVay share four Super Bowl appearances and one Super Bowl win as head coaches. LaFleur and McDaniel have eight postseason appearances as head coaches.
But that was then. 2026 is now, and changes had to be made.
The 2026 Commanders have new coordinators. OC Kliff Kingsbury (resigned) and DC Joe Whitt Jr (fired) are gone after two seasons with the team. Taking their places are David Blough (OC) and Daronte Jones (DC), both of whom are getting their first coordinator jobs in the NFL. Jones has had a storied coaching career from college to the NFL, but Blough has just begun.
Given Washington’s offensive issues last season (ranking 22nd in total offense), I’ll focus this article on Blough.
Before coaching, Blough was a quarterback at Purdue. After redshirting his first year, he played for the next four years and started multiple games. His best season was 2018, when he passed for 21 touchdowns and led his team to a 6-7 record and a bowl game appearance. Blough began his NFL career as an undrafted free agent for the Cleveland Browns. He was then traded to the Detroit Lions after an intriguing preseason performance. He started five games in his rookie year, passed for four touchdowns, threw for 984 yards, and had six interceptions. Over the next four years, he played two games for the Lions and two more for the Cardinals before retiring.
David Blough (photo courtesy Last Man Standing–Substack)
Blough then moved immediately to coaching, becoming the assistant quarterbacks coach for the Washington Commanders, spending two years under quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard, who was considered a potential next offensive coordinator before he took the head coaching job at Stanford. Blough has now leapfrogged into the offensive coordinator’s job. While some fans find the promotion unsatisfying, there are reasons to be applauding that appointment.
Consider these appraisals. In 2024, Kliff Kinsburg praised Blough on his intelligence, saying, “I remember we got him in Arizona for a couple [of] weeks, and he probably knew the offense better than I did after two weeks.” Duce Staley, who has been an assistant head coach on three teams, also praised Blough recently on the BMitch & Finley podcast: “You get around players, and sometimes you say, ‘this guy is going to be a coach.’
Does Blough have the potential to be the next great young NFL coach? My take is yes.
Washington has a history of letting great young coaches go, and head coach Dan Quinn is not taking that chance with David Blough. If history repeats itself, an NFL head coaching gig may be in Blough’s future.
