When looking at players on the Washington Football Team roster, all eyes go towards TE Logan Thomas when the subject of cheap acquisitions who played a big role comes up. However, the production that we saw from RB J.D. McKissic this past season deserves just as much recognition.
McKissic, who signed a two-year, $3.27 million contract with Washington last offseason, became an integral part of the offense, setting a career-high in both catches (80) and receiving yards (589), which was second among running backs in the NFL for the 2020 season. The person who he credits a lot of that success to also has her name in the news right now — newly promoted assistant running backs coach Jennifer King.
“I always thought she was already the assistant coach,” McKissic said, via The Washington Post. “She played a pretty good role in my success. … She helped me take that next step. It was just the little things like giving me a pregame workout, things that she did with [Christian] McCaffrey in the past in Carolina. She was able to bring that to Washington and push me in those types of ways.”
This past week, King became the first female Black full-time coach in the NFL, continuing the streak of progressiveness we’ve seen under Ron Rivera in Washington this past year. In her first year as an offensive assistant in Washington, players remarked that she more than held her own, and was always in the middle of the action.
“Every time I said I was going to do something, she was out there,” McKissic said. “She would be out there 15 minutes early, and we’d push each other like: ‘Hey, I’m out here. Where you at?’ Whenever I would be like, ‘Coach King, I need you,’ there was never a holdup. It was like, ‘Let’s get it.’ That’s the type of stuff players need.”
Because of that help from King, as well as an offensive gameplan that uniquely fit McKissic’s skills, he was able to put together a career year and cement his place as one of the primary weapons on the offense. We will see what he does in year two with Washington, but don’t be shocked to see him get a second contract in D.C. and become a steady part of this team going forward.
