So far, one thing clear is what it’s not: the “Air Raid,” the pass-heavy, shotgun-based scheme offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury came up in.
Kingsbury said he “wouldn’t categorize anything we do under that name.” Offensive line coach Bobby Johnson said some of the stuff Kingsbury ran as coach of the Arizona Cardinals “doesn’t look like Air Raid.” Quarterbacks coach Tavita Pritchard said it’s “super reductive if you say, ‘Kliff is Air Raid.’ ”
“We want to be balanced,” Kingsbury said. “We want to be able to run the football and play-action pass and really do whatever it takes to win.”
But whatever the label, it’s hard to imagine Kingsbury will radically depart from the foundations of his past successes. He’ll pass first (though probably not as much as Eric Bieniemy did last season), spread the field, take deep shots and use tempo. He’s likely to feature innovate passing concepts that create space and favorable matchups for playmakers. The questions are how the staff will develop the run game and protection schemes and marry them to the passes.
A lot will depend on the quarterback. Kingsbury said the traits most important to him are work ethic, leadership and mobility, and all top three prospects in the draft — Southern California’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels — seem to fit the criteria. Kingsbury will fit his ideas to his guy.
“Everybody learns differently. Everybody processes differently, likes different plays, sees the game differently,” he said. “So I really try to get to the bottom of who they are as a person, who they are as a player and build it around them.”
One facet of the offense that may seem niche but is actually important: How much the quarterback lines up under center or in the shotgun. Many offenses at lower levels nearly exclusively use shotgun, and Kingsbury, thanks in part to his Air Raid roots, did, too, with the Cardinals. But it’s harder to use shotgun at such a high rate in the NFL because it puts a lot on the quarterback’s shoulders.
One way to see it is on play-action fakes. Fakes from under center, known as “hard” play-action, generally force linebackers to step up to stop the run more aggressively than “soft” fakes from shotgun, which allow linebackers a split-second longer to read the play — which also allows them to stay in passing lanes longer and makes the quarterback’s margin for error smaller.
In January, Fox NFL broadcaster Greg Olsen pointed out one common thread among C.J. Stroud, Jordan Love and Brock Purdy, three young quarterbacks who had success last season: Their offensive coordinators made things easier on them by putting them under center on early downs.
“Shotgun is a critical element to modern offense,” Olsen wrote on X. “Has to be implemented, but the exclusivity of it is very dependent on having the perfect personnel to execute it.”
If Washington drafts a quarterback, he’ll be comfortable in shotgun. Williams, Maye and Daniels all spent more than 90 percent of their college snaps in shotgun, according to TruMedia.
But in the past decade, nearly all young quarterbacks have gone under center more in the NFL. Few coaches used shotgun as much as Kingsbury did in Arizona, with Kyler Murray at quarterback. The only other quarterbacks who played in the shotgun at such a high rate were Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts and Anthony Richardson. It’s unclear whether Kingsbury used shotgun at such a high rate because of Murray’s height (5-foot-10), his philosophy or both.
So does Kingsbury, like Olsen,…
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