Washington
Washington Commanders Offense to Look Different Under OC Kliff Kingsbury
The Washington Commanders roster reload brought every bit of juice to Washington D.C. Not only because there is a new set of talent on the team, but because there are new coordinators and coaches running the operation, which will have the franchise looking quite different.
Drafting LSU product Jayden Daniels with the No. 2 overall pick and hiring offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury — along with an entire fresh coaching staff — will lead to a potential offensive resurgence.
Last season, the Commanders had the No. 24 offense in the league, according to their 312.8 yards per game. Eric Bieniemy’s Commanders offense was a pass-first offense, though they didn’t do so efficiently.
READ MORE: Commanders Tight End Duo Listed in Fantasy Football Rankings by PFF
Pro Football Focus recently “clustered” offenses together, which left Washington in Cluster 1 — pass-heavy teams that were fairly efficient in doing so.
“The Commanders led the league in pass rate in 2023 (69.6%) but ranked only 26th in passing grade (60.9),” PFF wrote.
So, the Commanders are coming off a season in which they passed plenty. The Commanders will have a different offensive outlook this season. With Kingsbury taking over the offense, there will be a more “balanced approach.”
Not only is Daniels an incredible dual-threat quarterback, but the team has talented wide receivers and two solid running backs — one of those being newly acquired Austin Ekeler.
Ekeler is a threat in both the run and pass game, and his versatility only adds to the balanced offense, opening up more possibilities.
“We want to be balanced,” Kingsbury said of his offense. “We want to be able to run the football and play-action pass and really do whatever it takes to win.”
With a potential star dual-threat quarterback, there will be plenty of opportunity to simply do whatever it takes to win. They’ll be in the shotgun formation plenty, thanks to Kingsbury’s air raid roots. Still, it seems the offensive coordinator is open to switching things up and giving the offense new looks, which should leave Commanders fans hopeful.
With Daniels under center and talent in both the backfield and in the wide receiver room, the Commanders’ offense could be intriguing to watch and potentially explosive with the amount of versatility all around.
READ MORE: Was Drafting Jayden Daniels Washington Commanders ‘Biggest Gamble’ Of Offseason?
Stick with CommanderGameday and the Locked On Commanders podcast for more coverage of the Washington Commanders throughout the 2024 season.
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Washington
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury announces she’s pregnant
Trinity Rodman signs record deal with Washington Spirit
USWNT forward Trinity Rodman signed a three-year deal with the NWSL’s Washington Spirit. The deal makes Rodman the highest-paid female footballer in the world.
unbranded – Sport
Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has announced that she and her husband Matt are expecting a baby in July.
The couple made the announcement in a video on the Spirit’s social media channels, holding a baby goalkeeper jersey on the pitch at Audi Field.
Kingsbury becomes the most recent Spirit star to go on maternity leave, following defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Ashley Hatch.
Sullivan gave birth to daughter Millie in July, while Hatch welcomed her son Leo in January.
Krueger announced she was pregnant with her second child in October.
Kingsbury has served as the Spirit’s starting goalkeeper since 2018, and has been named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year twice (2019 and 2021).
The 34-year-old has two caps with the U.S. women’s national team, and was named to the 2023 World Cup roster.
The club captain will leave a major void for the Spirit, who have finished as NWSL runner-up in back-to-back seasons.
Sandy MacIver and Kaylie Collins are expected to compete for the starting role while Kingsbury is on maternity leave.
The Spirit kick off their 2026 campaign on March 13 against the Portland Thorns.
Washington
Washington state board awards Yakima $985,600 loan for Sixth Avenue project design
YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima could soon take a major step toward redesigning Sixth Avenue after the Washington State Public Works Board awarded the city a $985,600 loan.
The loan was approved for the design engineering phase of the Sixth Avenue project. The funding can also be used along Sixth Avenue for utility replacement and updated ADA use.
The Yakima City Council must decide whether to accept the award. If the council accepts it, the city’s engineering work will move forward with the design of Sixth Avenue.
The cost of installing trolley lines is excluded from the plan. The historic trolleys would need to raise the funds required to add trolley lines.
The award is scheduled to be discussed during next week’s City Council meeting.
Washington
Microsoft promises more AI investments at University of Washington
Microsoft will ramp up its investment in the University of Washington.
Brad Smith, the company’s president, made the announcement at a press conference with University of Washington President Robert Jones on Tuesday.
That means hiring more UW graduates as interns at Microsoft, he said.
And he said all students, faculty, and researchers should have access to free, or at least deeply-discounted, AI.
“ Some of it is compute that Microsoft is donating, and some of it is pursuant to an agreement where, believe me, we give the University of Washington probably the best pricing that anybody’s gonna find anywhere,” Smith said. He assured the small group of reporters present that it would be “many millions of dollars of additional computational resources.”
The announcement today didn’t include any specific numbers.
But Smith said Microsoft has already invested $165 million in the UW over several decades.
He pointed to Jones’ vision to spur “radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change,” and eliminate “any artificial barriers between the university and the communities it serves.”
Microsoft’s goal is for AI to help UW researchers solve some of the world’s biggest problems without introducing new ones.
At Tuesday’s announcement, several research students were present to demonstrate how AI supports their work.
Amelia Keyser-Gibson is an environmental scientist at the UW. She’s using AI to analyze photographs of vines, to find which adapt best to climate change.
It’s a paradox: AI produces carbon emissions. At the same time, it’s also a new tool to help reduce them.
So how do those things square for Keyser-Gibson?
“ That’s a great question, and honestly, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m highly aware that there’s a lot of environmental impact of using AI, but what I can say is that this has allowed us to make research innovations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
“If we had had to manually annotate every single image that would’ve been an undergrad doing that for hours,” Keyser-Gibson continued. “And we didn’t have the budget. We didn’t have the manpower to do that.”
“AI exists. If we don’t use it as researchers, we’re gonna fall behind.”
Microsoft reports on its own carbon emissions. But like most AI companies, it doesn’t reveal everything.
That’s one reason another UW student named Zhihan Zhang is using AI to estimate how much energy AI is using.
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