{"id":505136,"date":"2026-01-10T02:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T02:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505136\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T02:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T02:34:09","slug":"source-commanders-promote-david-blough-to-offensive-coordinator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505136\/","title":{"rendered":"Source: Commanders promote David Blough to offensive coordinator"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/keim_john.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/>\n<p>John KeimJan 9, 2026, 07:13 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>John Keim covers the Washington Commanders for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2013 after a stint with the Washington Post. He started covering the team in 1994 for the Journal Newspapers and later for the Washington Examiner. He has authored\/co-authored four books. You can also listen to him on &#8216;The John Keim Report&#8217;, which airs on ESPN Richmond radio.<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"fbeaf73e-6d6c-cca4-0809-713d9d741f90\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/wsh\/washington-commanders\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Washington Commanders<\/a> made their second surprising move of the week, promoting David Blough to offensive coordinator after only two years as an assistant quarterbacks coach, a source told ESPN on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Blough&#8217;s promotion comes after Washington <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/47528237\/sources-kingsbury-whitt-commanders-coordinators\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mutually agreed to part ways with offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury<\/a> on Tuesday as each side had a different future vision for the offense, according to multiple team sources and others with knowledge of the situation.<\/p>\n<p>Blough took over the quarterback coach duties after Tavita Pritchard, who held that role, was hired as <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"f74a44c4-7492-7a6e-34fe-ab14da6d7f2a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/24\/stanford-cardinal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stanford<\/a>&#8216;s head coach Nov. 28.<\/p>\n<p>A former quarterback, Blough played five seasons in the NFL with four different organizations. He appeared in nine games, making seven starts.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<p>The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"56caffee-178d-f6f2-a076-b277486b8c32\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/det\/detroit-lions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Detroit Lions<\/a> also showed interest in Blough for their offensive coordinator position. The Commanders did not want to lose someone they considered a talented coach, even if he&#8217;s only 30 years old.<\/p>\n<p>When Dan Quinn coached the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"49fd392a-86fe-4df3-1b77-9bbfa18b2ad5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/atl\/atlanta-falcons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Atlanta Falcons<\/a>, he allowed coaches such as Mike McDaniel and Matt LaFleur to leave when Kyle Shanahan became the head coach in <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"985a261f-296c-c95c-32a5-addc4df75001\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/sf\/san-francisco-49ers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Francisco<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a data-clubhouse-guid=\"19d73366-b5a5-cca2-a176-a2c024ce0bb3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/chi\/chicago-bears\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chicago<\/a>, Detroit and the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"732d3caf-b350-1e34-48c6-b7cebb4a0d88\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/nyj\/new-york-jets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New York Jets<\/a> showed interest in Blough last offseason.<\/p>\n<p>As a player, Blough spent time with Detroit from 2019 to 2021 and was on the Lions&#8217; practice squad in 2023. A year later, he joined Washington&#8217;s staff under Kingsbury, whom he played for in 2022 for a month before being cut the next season.<\/p>\n<p>Kingsbury often raved about Blough&#8217;s football acumen. He pointed to his experience in multiple systems, including under Ben Johnson in Detroit and Kevin O&#8217;Connell in <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"3db556c9-ed76-a7a5-4ccb-a92fc6db4334\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/min\/minnesota-vikings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Minnesota<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s very bright, there&#8217;s no doubt,&#8221; Kingsbury said last month. &#8220;He&#8217;s been around some great offensive minds &#8230; so his biggest strengths are he sees it from the lens of the player and yet he can kind of separate and still be the coach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Blough developed a strong relationship with Washington quarterback <a data-player-guid=\"f03f3238-b035-6f0e-5844-1529ca021c3a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4426348\/jayden-daniels\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jayden Daniels<\/a> &#8212; the two would play a football version of H-O-R-S-E before practice each Friday.<\/p>\n<p>But, Kingsbury said, Blough was demanding of the players. Kingsbury said that likely is because Blough &#8220;maximized who he was as a player.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He knew he had to get every ounce out of every throw and rep,&#8221; Kingsbury said. &#8220;You feel that in his coaching &#8230; he&#8217;s not going to let him off the hook if it&#8217;s a lazy rep &#8212; &#8216;Hey, do it again. We need a better one than that.&#8217; And I think that&#8217;s really been good for that room, just watching him work with those guys. They definitely appreciate and respect kind of his honesty and that he&#8217;s been through it on that level.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John KeimJan 9, 2026, 07:13 PM ET Close John Keim covers the Washington Commanders for ESPN. He joined&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-505136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505136","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=505136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}