Episode 1,427: Jayden Daniels vows to "embrace the brace," Washington has 23 players on injury report and more

Email from Brian Young on Washington's struggling rushing offense, which we talked about on Wednesday's show, episode one thousand four hundred twenty-six.

Writes Brian, "Our RB success rate must be the worst in the league.

This is why we got Austin, but we didn't use him properly.

Figure it out Blau, now." [chuckles] Thank you for the email, Brian.

Uh, rushing success rate is a great stat.

There are multiple versions of rushing success rate.

I like to use the version on Pro Football Reference.

Uh, Pro Football Reference's rushing success rate is the percentage of successful runs by a player, uh, with success defined as a first down run that gains at least forty percent of the yards needed for a first down or a touchdown, a second down run that gains at least sixty percent of the yards needed for a first down or a touchdown, or a third or fourth down run that gains at least a hundred percent of the yards needed for a first down or a touchdown.

Uh, rushing success rate is a lot better than yards per carry for judging a running back.

Yards per carry treats a one-yard run on first and ten the same as a one-yard run on fourth and goal at the one, and those obviously are two very different one-yard runs.

Uh, here we go.

Uh, [chuckles] W-Washington running back Jacori Crossy Merritt, he for this regular season through week four is tied for number forty-four- Out of 48 qualified players in the NFL in rushing success rate per pro football reference, 37.5, tied for number 44 out of 48.

That is brutal.

Would you like to know who is number five? I'll tell you.

Atlanta Falcons running back and former Washington Commanders running back, Brian Robinson Jr., 59.1. Washington, two summers ago, essentially chose Croskey Merritt over Robinson.

Uh, Washington, uh, took Croskey Merritt in the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft out of the University of Arizona.

Washington, on August 25th, 2025, announced having traded Brian Robinson to the San Francisco 49ers for a six-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

Now, Croskey Merritt did have a good rookie season.

Uh, Croskey Merritt for the 2025 regular season was number 15 out of 49 qualified players in the NFL in rushing success rate per pro football reference, 53.7.

But right now, Brian Robinson is doing well, and Jakori Croskey Merritt, not so much.

Uh, feedback on Dan Quinn, and, uh, what we, uh, seem to have right now is a whole lot of, uh, Dan Quinn fatigue [laughs] from Tom Googolotto on X.

Now, that's a great name on X, Tom Googolotto, a combination of Google and one of my all-time favorite Washington Bullets players, Tom Gugliotta.

Writes Tom, "Great show.

I'm tracking advanced analytics on Dan Quinn's pressers, looking at the amount of times he says the words space or spaces.

He's averaging 4.7 times for every 10 minutes.