Crowder has grown into a key component for Washington’s offense. Jay Gruden has shown a tendency to favor his 11, or ‘zebra’ personnel group, which consists of one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers. Crowder plays a huge role in this group. But to start the season, he was limited to a smaller number of plays until he proved he could handle more. Before he earned the starting slot receiver role, he was more of a gadget receiver, as Gruden found ways to get the ball in his hands.

Here, Crowder lines up in the slot to the left. He takes a few steps forward to fake the stem of a route before working back to receive the screen pass. Left tackle Trent Williams and guard Spencer Long do an excellent job working out to blocks. Williams makes a fantastic block to clear out space while Pierre Garcon also maintains a block on the outside. Lichtensteiger leads the way for Crowder to run down the field on his way to a big gain.

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Screens were used frequently with Crowder. But Washington had other methods to feed Crowder the ball and allow him to pick up yards after the catch.

This time, Crowder lines up outside to the right. He motions back tight to the formation. Washington fakes a run to the right while Crowder sifts back across the line into the flat. Quarterback Kirk Cousins dumps off the ball to Crowder, who picks up the first down and an extra five yards before being pushed out of bounds.

This type of play is very well designed. The Eagles play plenty of man coverage, so by motioning Crowder in tight and having him sift back across the line hides him slightly from the defenses and forces his man to work through traffic to catch him up.

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As the season progressed, Crowder’s route-running ability became more evident. He understands how to set up defenders and create separation.

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This is a route that Crowder ran a lot. He lines up in the slot to the left and runs a speed out route. He sets up the route well by releasing quickly off the line of scrimmage. He quickly stems up the field before selling a stutter step and head fake inside that causes the defender to lose his footing, creating plenty of separation as Crowder breaks to the sideline. That gives Cousins an easy throw to pick up a solid chunk of yards.

His intellegence as a route runner was also easy to see. Crowder does a good job reading coverage and reacting to it. He understands how to find gaps in zone coverage and “sits down” in them to give Cousins a check-down target.

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Here we see Crowder lined up to the left, stacked behind Rashad Ross. Crowder runs a spot route to go with the corner-flat combination from Ross and running back Alfred Morris. He reads the defender working out to the flat and fights through him to find a hole in the zone. He sits down in the hole and receives the ball from Cousins. Crowder then makes the most of the play, picking up extra yards after the catch by eluding a tackle and falling forward to the first-down marker.

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Washington’s coaches thought so much of Crowder that they trusted him with choice routes, which not many rookies are trusted with. In a recent radio interview with ESPN 980, Crowder explained to Chris Cooley and Kevin Sheehan how the choice routes work:

Jamison Crowder: It’s pretty much a three-way go; I can break inside, break outside or just sit it down depending on the coverage or the leverage of the defensive back Kevin Sheehan: And how do you see that? Crowder: It happens fast. Sometimes you kind of pick it up on the pre-snap. If you get like, a zero-type coverage, it’s pretty much then just based on the leverage. Sometimes we’ll do it from a stacked alignment. So sometimes the defenders, they’ll ‘in-and-out’ it, what they call in-and-out. So the guy that’s over me, you know, sometimes Pierre [Garcon], he’ll be right here and I’ll be behind him. Pierre, he’ll take an outside release so then the outside corner, he’ll take Pierre and then the inside corner, he’ll pick me up.

Here’s an example of what Crowder is talking about:

Here, Crowder is stacked behind Garcon. The Jets defenders are playing what Crowder referred to as ‘in-and-out,’ meaning the outside defender takes the first receiver to break outside while the inside defender takes the first receiver to break inside. As Crowder explains, Washington has Garcon release to the outside to take the outside corner away. That leaves Crowder one-on-one with the inside defender on his choice route.

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Crowder: So a lot of times when I get that leverage, I know I can set him up and I’ll just break out because I’m already outside leverage on him and I just have that open. But I got to set it up though, in a way so the defender can’t just jump the route.

Here’s how the play looks on the field:

Just as Crowder explained, the inside defender played with inside leverage, signaling Crowder to break to the outside. Crowder gains plenty of separation and makes an easy catch for a first down.

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Crowder makes it look easy, but it’s far from it. A receiver has to be very good at reading coverage and leverages of the defender to be trusted with choice routes. As the interview went on, they explained how the quarterback has to be on the same page as the receiver too:

Sheehan: Kirk is reading the same thing you’re reading? Crowder: He’s reading the same thing, so when I make my decision, I have to be decisive. Can’t be second guessing, doing this, doing that. You got to be very decisive and you got to make sure you get open and create separation. Cooley: And Kirk’s also got to know the guys. If Jordan Reed gets an in-and-out out of whatever kind of look, he will still break in. He wants to get in-and-out so he can still break in front of the inside player. So Kirk’s got to know Jordan’s going to break in, he’s got to know you’re the type of guy that likes to break out. If [the defender] over played it, you have the potential to break in as well, right? Crowder: Right. It’s more so, sometimes too, just a reaction thing, because sometimes you get a leverage where I have to be decisive but if I set up this route, set up this move, and the defender jumps outside and I break inside it’s just, it’s all that quick. Kirk and the quarterbacks, they see it that quick and they put the ball on me. Cooley: I think this whole thing is really smart and I think it’s incredible you’ve picked this up this way as a rookie because coaches don’t necessarily trust this [with rookies] and not a lot of guys can do it.

Cooley hits the nail on the head. Choice routes are something that not a lot of receivers can do, so for Crowder to be trusted with them in his rookie year is a statement from the coaching staff. Looking ahead to next season, Crowder will most likely remain as purely a slot receiver, but his role should still be an important one. If he can pick up from where he left off last season, Washington will be pretty happy with Crowder. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for Crowder to have even more of an impact in his second year. Towards the end of the season, Washington began experimenting with different ways to get Crowder open down the field for bigger plays.

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This is an example of one of the ways Washington might look to get bigger plays out of Crowder. He lines up in the slot here, the furthest inside of the three receivers to the right. The two outside receivers run in-breaking routes while Crowder runs a wheel route behind them. The play is designed to create traffic against man coverage, but the Cowboys play the in-and-out coverage that we saw earlier over the two inside receivers. Crowder gets passed off to the middle corner on his wheel route, lowering the number of bodies in traffic. But Garcon on the outside adjusts his route just enough to get in the way of the corner trailing Crowder. That buys Crowder a yard to turn the corner and burst down the sideline. Cousins pulls the trigger and hits Crowder perfectly for a big gain.

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Plays like these are a glimpse of what potential Crowder has to offer. He isn’t just a slot receiver who can win quickly on third down, he can stretch the field vertically too. Washington has a lot of talented pass catchers, but Crowder shouldn’t be forgotten about. If the coaching staff continues to find ways to use him vertically on top of his ability to work underneath, then Crowder could be one of the best receivers on the team.

Mark Bullock is The Insider’s Outsider, sharing his Redskins impressions without the benefit of access to the team. For more, click here.