Commanders Reacts Survey: Projecting outcomes based on early free agency moves

Survey questions!!

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Washington Commanders fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in regular email surveys.

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This is an awkward week to try to ask questions for our Reacts survey. For fans of some teams, it’s not so hard; they can basically ask about the headline-grabbing free agency move from Monday, but with Adam Peters having come to terms with 6 veteran free agents on Monday, and two three four a lot more on Tuesday, the action is really too fast for the kind of pace that we normally set with a Reacts survey.

Nonetheless, the opportunity presented itself, so I put my mind to the task on Monday night, trying to find a way to ask one or two questions that would be relevant no matter what happened for the rest of the week.

I’m not sure that I was successful, but I’ve got two survey questions this week.

The questions

The first question addresses the running back position, where the Commanders front office let a fairly popular player — Antonio Gibson — leave, only to sign a similar but older player — Austin Ekler — to a contract of similar value to the one that Gibson reportedly signed with New England.

The obvious link here is Washington’s new running game coordinator, Anthony Lynn, who was the head coach of the Chargers from 2017-2020. Ekeler spent his entire career (until now) with the Chargers, joining them as an undrafted rookie in 2017, when Lynn was a first-time head coach.

Ekeler will obviously be familiar with what Lynn wants to design and implement. At 28 years old, Ekeler is at the point in his career where most running backs begin to lose a step, but he will be sharing the load with two young backs in former Alabama player and 3rd year NFL RB Brian Robinson, and 2nd year former Kentucky Wildcat, RB Chris Rodriguez.

Ekler and Gibson are similar players, though AG is 25 years old and just reaching the end of his rookie contract, while Ekler is 28 years old, and has been in the NFL since 2017.

Here’s a look at some key statistical results for both players from 2020-2023:

These 4 seasons comprise all of Gibson’s career, and the most recent 4 years of Ekler’s. Gibson played 4 more games than Ekler, but Ekler compiled more yards rushing and receiving, had significantly more touchdowns, had slightly better efficiency in yards per carry, yards per reception, and yards per target. Looking at this chart reminds me of the old song, “Anything you can do, I can do better”, with Ekler simply having been more successful than Gibson over the past 4 years.

Still, Gibson was ‘our guy’; he’s younger, and many fans had the feeling that he was never used to his full potential by the Rivera coaching staffs.

We ask you today to predict the outcome of the switch from Gibson to Ekler.

In the second question, we look at another one of ‘our’ players who may be getting pushed aside for one with ties to the new coaching staff. With the signing of Tyler Biadasz from the Cowboys, the future for 2nd year player Ricky Stromberg, who spent most of his rookie season on IR, becomes murky. Is he expected to be an “apprentice”, learning his trade from Biadasz? Will the two openly compete for the starting job? Will Stromberg have to move to left guard to get a shot, or is he likely to be relegated to backup duty as both Center and Guard?

We ask you to predict Stromberg’s role in 2024 in today’s survey.

There’s obviously a massive roster reset underway in Washington and tons of possible topics to discuss, but for today, these two questions will be the focus. No doubt, we’ll be back with more comprehensive looks at the work that Adams and Quinn have wrought in the coming weeks.

Comments & Results

Of course, we invite you to answer the survey questions below, but also feel free to expand on your answers and provide nuance in the comments section. I rely on those comments when discussing the results of the survey when they are posted in a separate article the next few days.

POLL QUESTIONS