Washington Commanders offensive line coach Bobby Johnson spoke to the media about his position group ahead of the team's Week 3 matchup with the Las Vegas Raiders. Here's a full look at the interview.
Reporter: What have you seen from the offensive line?
Bobby: Obviously we had some things we needed to work on after the last game, and you always have something to work on every week. But I see the guys working very hard. They took the areas where we didn't meet our own expectations to heart and have been working really hard on certain things.
What I tried to do after the game was identify what we do well and what we're not doing well. A lot of times you try to say, "This play was good, that play was good," but really you just have to reduce it to the simplest terms: here's a specific task we do well—show examples of that—and here's where we're not meeting expectations. Be clear. The players usually acknowledge it and agree.
So we went back to basics: here's what we do well, let's keep doing it; here's what we're not doing well, let's add extra reps to clean it up. Every player is different, so if everyone's struggling with something, it's probably not them -- it's either how I'm coaching them or what we're asking them to do. So we all work together to correct it.
Reporter: How's Josh Conerly coming along in your mind? He's faced a gauntlet to start.
Bobby: Good. With rookies, they see something new every single day. Josh is going to get a lesson every day. He's already faced some of the best, and that's not going to stop—every team has a good pass rusher. Even if a guy isn't elite, he knows he's going against a rookie and will give his best shot.
Josh is mature for 21, reserved, works hard, great kid. He wants to be really good. Sometimes you just have to tell him, "I know you made a mistake -- learn from it."
It's a blessing he has a guy like Laremy. Laremy takes him aside, works on technique, and teaches him how to be a pro. Josh is in early every day doing extra stretching and lifting. He's in the right space. He just has to understand he'll have rough spots and learn how to mitigate them.
I tell him not every play is going to be clean. Maybe only 5% of the time it will be. The rest will be ugly wins—take those. Don't try to be perfect. He's progressing the right way.
Reporter: What do you guys have to do as a unit to improve in the run game and find consistency?
Bobby: I'd ask where you saw inconsistency. In the first game, everyone was pleased with the results. In the second, the situation forced us to throw more, so the stats didn't look good, but it wasn't really about the run game.
When we have opportunities to run, we have to stay efficient. I don't look at end-game stats; I look at whether each called run is efficient. Right now, we are. We just need to keep ourselves in position to run more often.
Reporter: What goes into finding that efficiency earlier in games to avoid playing from behind?
Bobby: Consistency on offense overall. Stay ahead of the chains. In the NFL, once you're behind the chains, it's an uphill battle. Everyone has to do their job so we can stay ahead and keep the offense balanced.
Reporter: You'll be working with a different starting running back and quarterback Sunday. How much does that change things for your group?
Bobby: When I was younger, I probably thought it mattered a lot. At this point: they call it, we haul it. The quarterback calls the play, our job is to block it.
With a new QB, the cadence might sound slightly different, but Marcus is a pro—very little difference. With a new running back, we don't worry about footwork. We just want to know: does he know his reads and will he hit the hole? After the mesh, talent takes over. Our job is to block it. If a good back is playing, they'll find it—and sometimes make us right even when we're off. We trust whoever's back there.
Reporter: On Josh's development—how much is technique versus physicality, speed, or mental side?
Bobby: The biggest adjustment is the week-to-week competition. In college, he might face a top rusher three times in 14 games. In the NFL, every week it's a different challenge—no easy games, no easy plays.
It's not just technique or footwork; it's learning to adjust weekly. How do I maximize my strengths, minimize my weaknesses, tweak my style for each opponent? That never stops—not even in year ten.
The outside world wants him to be All-Pro right now. He doesn't need to be that. He just needs to consistently be Josh.
Reporter: The challenge of facing different guys -- what works against one might not work against another.
Bobby: Exactly. That's why practice is so important. Our scout-team guys study opponents so they can mimic them.
Each rusher is unique: Micah is a unicorn, one of the greatest ever. Max is relentless with a high motor and a bag of tricks. Burns is different again. Every week Josh has to learn what their top moves are, what counters they use, and -- most importantly -- what he cannot give them.
It's a chess match. You're constantly adjusting. They're going to win some reps—erase it, move to the next. Don't let one loss turn into two because you're stuck on the last play.
That's why I told him to get off social media. Young players can get eaten alive by outside noise. Josh is ahead of the curve because he's mature and focused.
Reporter: How unique is Maxx Crosby in terms of bend, rush ability and playing against the run?
Bobby: There's no one else like him. I remember watching him at Eastern Michigan. Slender build, athletic, but he creates leverage, drops his pads, and separates.
As soon as you press on him, he's gone. His skill set is almost like martial arts—constantly moving, changing levels, freestyling but making himself right. That makes it hard for offensive linemen because we're rule-driven, and he breaks those rules.
So you have to reduce it to the simplest terms: what's the leverage of the play? If you do your job with leverage, you eliminate other factors. That's something I had to learn as a coach—not to overload players with every detail, but reduce the problem.
With Max, there's no play off. He plays almost every snap. You just have to make him work every single play and hope you can take something out of him for later.
