Every Washington Commanders fan knew there would be changes coming at the end of the disappointing 2025 season. Head coach Dan Quinn delivered.
Defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. already had a foot out the door from the moment he was stripped of play-calling duties. Recent reports suggested that offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury was on his way out as well.
But to actually witness both men saying goodbye on the same day? That’s still a shock to the system.
News like this usually only happens to teams at either end of the success spectrum.
Commanders better have a strong plan in place to replace Kliff Kingsbury
Teams at the bottom of the league fire their head coach, and whoever replaces him cleans house, bringing in his own chosen coordinators. Or the very best teams might see both coordinators leave to take head-coaching jobs elsewhere.
But neither of those descriptions fits the Commanders.
They may have had a great season in 2024 and a poor one in 2025, but realistically, they are neither as good nor as bad as those two seasons suggest. They are somewhere in the middle of the pack, and middle-of-the-pack teams usually don’t blow things up.
The Team 980’s Kevin Sheehan had the exact right take on the news that Kingsbury was leaving.
"If they move on from somebody like Kliff Kingsbury, they better have a better solution."Kevin Sheehan
Kevin says the Commanders moving on from OC Kliff Kingsbury means they'd better have a solution to replace his elite production. pic.twitter.com/C2UpGxJcy7
— The Team 980 (@team980) January 6, 2026
If the recent reports are correct and tension has been brewing between Kingsbury, Quinn, and Adam Peters for a while, you can best believe that the general manager has plans in place. There are a lot of reasonable offensive minds on the market, and at this time of the year, new ones seem to crop up every day.
Kevin Stefanski, the recently fired Cleveland Browns head coach, is receiving interview requests. But if he gets no offers for a top job and wants to work as a coordinator next year, it’s hard to imagine Peters won’t be beating down his door.
Is it possible they have already spoken?
What about Mike Kafka? Before he was laughed out of New York for failing in his no-win trial as the Giants’ interim coach, he was known as the guru who helped Patrick Mahomes adjust to the NFL and then began to work similar magic with Jaxson Dart. He would bring a touch of the Andy Reid offense to D.C.
Davis Webb has coached Bo Nix in Denver and served as the Broncos' pass game coordinator. As a member of Denver’s staff, he has been learning at the feet of Sean Payton. David Shaw runs the passing game in Detroit, and we have heard (and seen – in the hiring of Lance Newmark) that Peters admires the way the Lions operate.
Here’s the main point. All of those potential Kingsbury replacements come from a different background. That seems to be the primary goal right now.
Fresh blood. New ideas.
If quarterbacks' coach Tavita Pritchard had not left this year to return to his alma mater as Stanford's head coach, perhaps he would have been an in-house candidate to replace Kingsbury. But he may have been deemed too inexperienced for the job.
But more importantly, someone like Pritchard would have made sense only if Kingsbury left for a head-coaching job and Peters and Quinn wanted to maintain some sense of continuity. That is not what happened.
They essentially fired Kingsbury along with Whitt. As Sheehan said, you don’t move on from the quality of Kingsbury unless you think you have somebody better lined up.
There is no one in-house. But there may be someone out there who is.
Pretty soon, we should find out what the plan is.