ASHBURN, Va. — Washington Commanders offensive lineman Nick Allegretti joined the team coming off his third Super Bowl win as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. In fact, in his five seasons with the Chiefs before joining the Commanders, Allegretti won three Super Bowls and appeared in four.
“I just kept my head down and got a chance to get on the roster in Kansas City. Did whatever I could to stay on the team and I was very fortunate to get drafted to a good franchise,” Allegretti said in his one-on-one with WUSA9’s Chick Hernandez ahead of the Week 13 contest between Washington and the Tennessee Titans. “I've been incredibly fortunate so far in my career.”
Part of that good fortune includes the arrival of twin daughters on the same day he won his second Super Bowl, something made possible by the strong familial bonds he and his wife have between them and around them.
As one of the new members of the Commanders, it's those experiences and his approach to the game that made him a match with the new direction the franchise turned to under the leadership of general manager Adam Peters and head coach Dan Quinn.
Despite the fact that Washington had far from the success his previous team did, that new direction - and his belief in it - were enough to bring Allegretti to the DMV.
“I knew that there hadn't been a lot of success here recently, but spoke with the coaches here, and loved what they had to say, the program they wanted to build, DQ and AP. It's exactly what I want to see in a program,” Allegretti said when asked about what drew him to the Commanders. “Guys that love football, that care about what we're doing every day, physical tough style of football, I think, I believe what they're preaching and I still believe what they said is what we're trying to do. And any football team that that is the goal, I believe is going to have some success.”
Washington has had plenty of success this season. More than most figured it would with projections for the season sitting right around the six or seven-win mark.
Through nine weeks of play, the Commanders had already hit that point and promised to blow that projection out of the water. However, recent struggles have set in and derailed the once high-flying offense.
“I think that there was a lot of speed, a lot of tempo, and I think that's something that we're continuing to try to make sure that we get to, but we had a lot of unknown - we were very unknown,” Allegretti said when asked about getting the offense back on track. “So as the defensive coordinators around the league start to see more and more tape from us, they're learning a little bit. So now it's a chess match back and forth. They've learned a little more. We've learned a little more about how defense they're going to play us. So really excited about the game plan we've got this week to push through some of the challenges we've had the last couple of weeks.”
That next challenge, a three-win Tennessee Titans team, has been playing better as of late, and quarterback Will Levis has just north of a 109 passer rating in his last three games.
Allegretti and his offensive teammates will look to out-shoot that Titans offense while the defense will be aiming to bring Levis back down to earth. The two teams will kickoff inside Northwest Stadium this Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
