Promoting David Raih Proves Commanders Are All-In on Supporting Blough

The Washington Commanders didn’t waste time finding their new pass game coordinator and are promoting tight ends coach David Raih (pronounced rye) to the position.

That report, first coming from NFL Network Insiders Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero, is the latest piece to the puzzle of what will become of the 2026 Commanders in what has already been a tremendously busy offseason.

Filling the void left by Johnson

Washington was relatively quiet about the status of that position until it was revealed that assistant head coach and pass game coordinator Brian Johnson had departed the team to join the Los Angeles Rams’ staff just before the NFL Scouting Combine began at the end of February.

Head coach Dan Quinn acknowledged the curiosity about where all the changes will lead following a 2025 offseason with no departures and now this offseason with so much turnover on the coaching staff. “It’ll make for an interesting [2026], that’s for sure,” Quinn said about not only the situation with the Commanders, but across the league as a whole.

Feb 24, 2026; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Surrounding Blough with support

Before the move to promote Raih was reported, Quinn shared with us at the combine this week that, “We do have people that we’ve visited with on that spot. As a pass game coordinator, it’s ultimately like supporting David—how do ideas change, where do they go, and so looking around the corners, what do we need to hit on, where we’re going? So it’s in an assistant role and one that requires a lot of support, not just to the O.C. but to the skill players as well."

General manager Adam Peters declined to dive too deeply into coaching staff matters, but did share that, “really what we want to do is make sure we surround David Blough with as many people that can help him as possible to ensure he has every chance at success. So, yeah, we'll do that."

A reputation for preparation

As the tight ends coach for Washington over the past two seasons, Raih worked extensively with veterans Zach Ertz and John Bates, as well as younger and less experienced players like Ben Sinnott, Colson Yankoff, and Lawrence Cager. He developed a reputation as one of the hardest-working and most energetic coaches on the staff, and I can’t recall a time I interacted with him when he didn’t seem to fully embrace his role with passion.

Coach Raih, Ertz shared during the 2025 season, “pushes me, encourages me, finds little things that we can improve on. So, I think I owe a lot of my success last year to him.”

In a previous conversation with the coach, he shared some of his mentality about the game, saying, “The better you are, the better you have to be. …And so what we do is we look at every single [skill], and we break them down into a manageable set, and then we just go to work and pound on all those."

The last time I spoke with Raih, the coach shared that he believes in showing up every day and having a plan. That players deserve to have the answers to their questions when it comes to game plans, and that the best ones will have a lot of them, so he feels he’d better be prepared to answer them, or to find them.

That approach served him well as a tight ends coach with the Commanders, and as a coach with teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arizona Cardinals, and Green Bay Packers before that.

As he turns his focus to continuing to find the answers for his players, he’ll now have a larger role in helping new offensive coordinator David Blough find them as well, and as another up-and-coming coach in the NFL, will be expected to tap into new wrinkles we’ve not seen before in Washington football.