Defensive players are learning a lot of new things since Daronte Jones became defensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders, but none more challenging than mastering actings skills that would make Academy Award winner Denzel Washington proud.
Being as convincing as the star of “Malcolm X,” “Training Day” and “Flight” will be as important as any of Jones’ X’s and O’s, according to defensive tackle Jer’Zhan ‘Johnny’ Newton. He told WUSA9 Jones “said we gotta be whole a bunch of Denzel Washingtons, so great actors, and if everything looks the same, it opens up the pressures, the stunts that we have ’cause it all looks the same. So it just confuses the offense, slows them down.”
This idea of making opposing quarterbacks and offensive linemen believe what they see is what former Minnesota Vikings defensive backs coach Jones was hired to teach the worst defense in the NFL in 2025.
It’s a version of the defense Jones learned from Brian Flores, the league’s premier designer of tour-de-force pressure and chic coverage. Jones has been implementing that same combination this offseason, but this creative and exciting new scheme “only works if all 11 defenders are acting in the same movie,” according to “Locked On Commanders” podcast host David Harrison.
A closer look at how the Commanders’ thespians can bring Jones’ sophisticated pressure packages to life shows why they could field one of the tougher defenses in the league in 2026.
Provided the Commanders all hit their marks and stay convincing at both ends of Jones’ unit.
Daronte Jones Needs ‘Denzel Washingtons’ to Make Defense Works
Harrison revealed Jones “wants you to think it’s cover two when it’s actually fire zone cover three. Or he wants you to think his fire zone cover three when it’s actually cover zero with man coverage across the board.”
This isn’t just a Flores-style brand of defense. The new-look Commanders are also borrowing the best ideas of a Super Bowl-winning head coach.
GettyThe Commanders are borrowing concepts from some of the most creative defensive minds in the NFL, including Flores.
No matter the influence, the core ideas stay the same. To confuse offenses about what’s going to happen after the snap. Who is going to blitz? Who’s going to bail deep and what will the coverage look like?
Harrison stressed this is “really the entire idea here in this disguise defense. You want great actors, not just great football players because it’s got to be the same picture, but different answers. Again, it takes all 11, right? If Odafe Oweh is doing his part of, I look the same, like this might be the fourth different call we’re giving out of this look, but I look the same. Johnny Newton looks the same, Daron Payne looks the same, Trey Amos, Mike(y) Sainristil, Quan Martin, they all look the same.”
The upside of this bait-and-switch approach is obvious, but things can go wrong fast if Newton and Co. aren’t as convincing as Washington’s finest performances.
Commanders Must Sell Disguise
Presenting vanilla fronts before the snap, only to jump into something far more elaborate once a quarterback has the ball in his hands, is a tricky production for the Commanders. Everybody has to be in sync, convincing enough to sell the disguise, or else Jones’ until will be punished after the snap.
Harrison pointed out the dangers by explaining, “if Nick Cross looks different, that can be enough depending on the quarterback and of course the study and the IQ and all that stuff of the offensive line as well, saying the protection. That could be enough to say, ‘Hey, listen, they look like, I don’t know, fire cover zone three. They’ve run cover two out of this before, but check out that guy. He’s doing something different, and what he’s doing tells me this is actually cover one with a heavy blitz in front of it.’ If they pick that up, that’s how they pick you apart. Every single man has to be on the same page.”
Each player being in the right spot with the right alignment to sell whatever an offense thinks is going to happen, while hiding Jones’ true intent, requires clear communication between a lot of new faces on the Commanders’ defense.
It’s why general manager Adam Peters and head coach Dan Quinn spent big to recruit edge-rushers like Oweh and K’Lavon Chaisson. To add inside linebacker Leo Chenal, who played in a similarly unorthodox, pressure defense for Steve Spagnuolo with the Kansas City Chiefs.
The free-agent additions all have the experience and core skills to quickly adapt to what Jones is planning, but it could be a different story for rookie inside linebacker Sonny Styles. The seventh pick in the 2026 NFL draft is widely expected to wear the green dot as the on-field play-caller.
GettyJones is counting on rookie linebacker Styles to call one of the more complex defenses in the league on the field.
So a first-year player is being asked to grasp the shared knowledge of collective alignments and assignments that’s crucial to Jones’ brand of what Harrison calls “designed chaos, shock and awe” that is “actually very well defined and structured.”
All of the nuance up front is just one part of the change taking place under Jones. Defensive backs must also adapt to a more subtle, zone-heavy scheme than the blanket man coverage often called by Quinn and Jones’ predecessor Joe Whitt Jr.
The Commanders ditched the old ways because they kept leaking points, but mastering the ambitious change under Jones is a challenging role for everyone involved.
Commanders Want a ‘Bunch of Denzel Washingtons’ on Defense