{"id":1002805,"date":"2026-08-15T17:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T17:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1002805\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T17:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T17:41:23","slug":"commanders-vs-dolphins-preseason-mark-tylers-studs-and-duds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1002805\/","title":{"rendered":"Commanders vs. Dolphins preseason: Mark Tyler\u2019s Studs and Duds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Commanders 2026 preseason opener against the Dolphins went pretty much as planned. Washington gave up an opening drive score, mainly with the second-team defense against Miami\u2019s starters. They locked in after that and didn\u2019t allow any more points for the rest of the game <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/videos\/dolphins-vs-commanders-highlights-preseason-week-1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">in a 20-7 victory at Northwest Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">What really caught my attention was the lack of sloppy play \u2014 which is usually prevalent in the preseason opener. Although new coordinators David Blough and Daronte Jones kept things pretty vanilla, the execution was good and I didn\u2019t see a lot of bad mistakes. To me, this was the biggest win of the evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Below are my Studs and Duds of the game, followed by some notes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fatman Allen\/Robert Henry Jr.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The rookie running back duo turned out to be the highlight of the evening for Washington. Robert Henry Jr. showed vision and burst while Fatman Allen showed patience and wiggle. Both men found the end zone in the opener.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Martin, playing safety with the second-team defense, and looked the part of a starter against Miami. He had a beautiful tackle on Dolphins running back De\u2019Von Achane on the first drive and got an interception on the sideline early in the second quarter. He was around the football quite a bit early in the game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Shy Tuttle and Rickey Barber showed well throughout the evening. The duo combined for eight total tackles, a sack and a tackle for a loss to go along with multiple pressures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Rookie sixth-r0under Matt Gulbin played a really nice game at center, albeit against the Dolphins second- and third-string defensive line. He did a nice job working to the second level to pick off Miami defenders and his anchor in pass protection looked really good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Quarterback Sam Hartman doesn\u2019t look like he belongs on an NFL field. He lacks accuracy and zip on his passes, and his pocket-presence is below-average. However, he does have a potential career as a hair model.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Playing with the starters, Newton looked anything but one! He was blown off the ball by Miami\u2019s starting offensive line and looked slow and out of place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Julian (Not-so-)Good Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Washington\u2019s starting center (by default), looked overwhelmed against the Dolphins defense. He showed a poor anchor in pass-pro and didn\u2019t do a good job moving bodies or getting to the second level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Commanders 2026 preseason opener against the Dolphins went pretty much as planned. Washington gave up an opening&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1002806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,145547,52,294890],"class_list":["post-1002805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-studs-and-duds","tag-top-stories","tag-washington-commanders-analysis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117100759490885283","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1002806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}