Commanders Film Review: Athan Kaliakmanis vs Dolphins

Rookie quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis quietly had a good outing for the Commanders in their preseason opener against the Dolphins last Friday. He completed six of his 10 passes for 87 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions, but he was also sacked twice. It was clearly a better performance than Sam Hartman, who completed eight of 15 for 80 yards with an interception.

Kaliakmanis finds himself in a battle with Hartman for the third quarterback spot. There’s been some question if the Commanders would even keep a third quarterback on the active roster, or just roll with Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota, knowing they could probably get one or both Kaliakmanis and Hartman to the practice squad. But Mariota’s injury in the Dolphins game makes it likely the Commanders opt to keep a third quarterback just in case Mariota isn’t ready for the regular season opener.

Mariota’s absence also means Kaliakmans has a great opportunity. With Mariota not practicing for the rest of preseason and the Commanders opting against adding another quarterback right now, there’s more reps on offer for both Kaliakmanis and Hartman. But can Kaliakmans win those reps and earn the job over Hartman? Based on his performance against Miami, I’d say he has a good chance.

This was Kaliakmanis’ first pass of the game, and it’s a great example of what he does best. The Commanders line up under center with 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends). Both tight ends align to the left while both receivers align to the right. Washington calls a play-action pass, faking a run to the right before working into a sail concept. The outside receiver to the right runs a deep post route, designed to clear out the deep defenders and vacate space underneath. The running back fakes the hand off and works out to the flat, designed to grab the attention of any flat zone defender.

In the middle of those two routes, rookie receiver Antonio Williams runs a sail route from the slot. He works vertically up the field before breaking outside towards the sideline in between the deep post from the outside receiver and the flat route from the running back. This gives the Commanders a three-level flood, which is hard to defend if the defense is playing zone coverage. Kaliakmanis fakes the hand off and gets to the top of his drop while reading the defense. He can see the defense is in zone, so he takes a single hitch step and fires a strong pass out to Williams.

Kaliakmanis not only delivers the throw on time, but he drives the ball from the far hash to the sideline on a rope, hitting Williams in stride with a perfectly placed pass. Williams is able to run his route without any adjustments and pull in the pass before running out of bounds. The pass needed the velocity and placement that Kaliakmanis put on it too. The outside cornerback was in zone coverage and initially worked deep with the post route, but he read the concept and peeled off to try and break down on the sail route. A loose throw with less velocity could have given that corner time to contest the catch, but because Kaliakmanis was on time with his throw and put plenty on the pass, the corner had no chance of making up the ground.

Kaliakmanis ripped a couple of throws like this as the game continued.

Here we have another play-action pass from the Commanders. They’re in 12 personnel again, but this time in a different formation. They have a tight end on either side of the line and a receiver on either side, but both receivers are aligned tight to the formation. The call this time is the sister concept of sail. Some call it pylon sail, I know it as “Cruise” from when Jay Gruden was in Washington. The idea is the same as the sail concept, flood three levels of the defense with a deep route, intermediate route and a flat route. But this time, the deep route changes from a deep post that starts outside and breaks inside, to a deep corner route that starts inside and breaks outside. The benefit of this change is the sail route and the deep corner route can create a natural pick by running so tight together that defenders can end up running into each other while trying to cover them.

For Kaliakmanis, the idea is essentially the same. He wants to hit the top of his drop, take a hitch and then fire the sail route to the sideline. The circumstances are a bit different here though, as when Kaliakmanis works into his drop, he feels pressure coming off the right side of the line. So instead of being able to just hit the top of his drop and take a nice clean hitch step into his throw, Kaliakmanis has to take a more significant step to work up into the pocket and allow the right tackle to run his defender beyond the depth of the quarterback.

Kaliakmanis looks very smooth taking that step up in the pocket. As he does it, he resets himself and spots Colson Yankoff breaking open on the sail route. Just like before, he delivers a strong pass on a rope that hits his receiver in stride just before the sideline. Yankoff nearly bobbles the pass and messes it up, but he just about manages to get control of the ball and get both feet in bounds to complete the pass. It would have been a shame if Yankoff had dropped it, because it was a very nice rep from Kaliakmanis where he was able to show poise under a little bit of pressure and climb the pocket while still staying in rhythm of the play.

It was a confident start from Kaliakmanis as those two throws both came on his first drive. Unfortunately, that drive ended on a third and 13 play, but not through any fault of Kaliakmanis.