The ESSENTIAL Football Show 
Top 51 Cap Space: 2026: $50.3 million | 2027: $101.6 million | 2028: $265.7 million
Draft Picks: 2027: 1-7 | 2028: 1-7
Football Decision Makers: GM Adam Peters | HC Dan Quinn | OC David Blough | DC Daronte Jones | ST Larry Izzo
State of the Team
We are entering Year 3 of the roster revamp for the Washington Commanders with the key trio of general manager Adam Peters, head coach Dan Quinn, and quarterback Jayden Daniels in the mix.
As it currently stands, it’s starting to look like the former two were unbelievably lucky to draft the third piece.
When healthy, Jayden Daniels has shown he can be a special quarterback in the NFL. At his best, his combination of patience and electric athletic ability make him a blast to watch; Daniels is an absurd athlete, and the traits translate to both his running and passing ability.
The problem is that the Commanders have done an objectively bad job building around him. There have been egregious missteps (see: Marshon Lattimore trade), and even when moves like the Laremy Tunsil trade did hit, Washington was so over-aggressive with this approach of trading picks for veterans that moves like swapping a 5th rounder for Deebo Samuel, which is a modest price to pay in a vacuum, have left the Commanders with a dearth of talent on the roster, both in their rookie contract group and the veteran pool.
Perhaps they thought the six top-100 picks in the 2024 class had shored up their youth for the foreseeable future, but Daniels is the only impact player from that group. The Commanders added a long list of names in free agency this offseason - they had to spend their cash somehow - but that didn’t change the fact that this team lacks needle-movers.
The bet might be that the changes at coordinator, where David Blough comes over from the Lions to take over the offense and Daronte Jones comes from the Vikings to join forces with Quinn on the defensive side, will produce better results, but this feels like a Hail Mary. Setting aside the high regard both Blough and Jones seem to have around the NFL, the Kliff Kingsbury offense seemed to work pretty well in Year One, and Quinn, the head coach, is a longtime defensive coordinator who is not involved on that side of the ball.
When I reviewed the Commanders a year ago, I noted that they seemed likely to remain a contender as long as Jayden Daniels was healthy, though they remained as quarterback-dependent as anyone with a roster that needed another solid offseason cycle or two to really fill out.
My opinion on Daniels is largely unchanged - I remain high on his ability, though the health issues are a concern - but with the pieces around him, I’m skeptical that this is all going to come together.
Offense
The Commanders should have three quality linemen in place; Laremy Tunsil missed the final three games of the season, but is healthy for the offseason and coming off a strong year, right guard Sam Cosmi will be a year removed from his ACL injury, and right tackle Josh Conerly had plenty of positives to build on from Year One.
The positives generally stop there; Chris Paul proved to be an adequate guard, but cutting Tyler Biadasz, who was immediately snatched up by the Chargers, when the Commanders had plenty of cap space and no better option than moving journeyman Nick Allegretti into the starting slot and adding 6th-round center Matt Gulbin doesn’t appear to make ANY sense. (Honestly, if someone could explain that to me, I’d be genuinely appreciative, because short of sleeping with the owner/coach/GM’s wife, or cursing out someone in that group, I have no idea why that decision was made.)
Beyond the seemingly self-inflicted wounds on the offensive line, Washington’s receiver situation is arguably more of a mess than it was last offseason, when lead wideout Terry McLaurin held out for most of the offseason in a contract dispute. McLaurin is still the lead weapon, but he is coming off a disappointing season and turns 31 in September. Dyami Brown is back in the fold after a total flop in Jacksonville, but Brown had a modest role in Washington’s offense for most of the 2024 season; the Commanders can also roll out Treylon Burks, Luke McCaffrey, or Jaylin Lane, but counting on the first two is a pipe dream at this point, and Lane had 16 catches his rookie season. Maybe Chig Okonkwo adds something at tight end, but he hasn’t averaged more than 10 yards per reception since his rookie season, and seems like a complementary 5th option in a good offense rather than a potential 2, which puts a lot of pressure on 3rd-round pick Antonio Williams to add some juice to this offense.
That juice will have to come from the receiver position, because free-agent running back Rachaad White is not exactly a big-play merchant. He should handle the pass-catching duties given that Jacory Croskey-Merritt didn’t do much in that area as a rookie, giving the Commanders two backs who I’d describe as more physical than truly dynamic as runners.
All things considered, adding two low-end veterans, a 3rd-round receiver, and a 6th-round center would appear to fall woefully short of what this team really needed to support their franchise quarterback. Perhaps Deebo Samuel, who led this team in receiving yards last year, is back in the fold come training camp, but Samuel is several years removed from his peak production, and tight end Zach Ertz, last year’s third-leading receiver, is coming off a torn ACL at age 36, which makes him an unlikely candidate to boost this group.
Defense
To be fair, you can only sign the players available, so Washington investing their free-agent dollars on defense may have been an issue of opportunity rather than a situation where they had choices.
It also doesn’t help that the Commanders were missing their second-round pick, because while Sonny Styles, the 7th overall pick, is an incredibly exciting prospect at inside linebacker, it seems as if he is going to be in the middle of a very difficult situation. (At least Styles should be able to rack up tackles).
Washington finished in the bottom 10 in opponent yards per rush in 2025, and given the decision to add a pair of finesse edge rushers in free agents Odafe Oweh and K’Lavon Chaisson, I don’t know why anyone would expect that to improve. Defensive Tim Settle has (quietly) put together some really good film the last two years in Houston, but we’ve seen several defensive tackles boost their game when they joined the Texans and/or struggle after they left, so that’s not a guaranteed thing. Leo Chenal was weaponized by Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, but outside of the fact they like to bring pressure, there isn’t a whole lot tying Dan Quinn’s defenses to Spagnuolo’s from a structural standpoint, so again, this is not a guaranteed fit.
The Commanders added Amik Robertson at cornerback, and regardless of who between Robertson or Sainristil lines up in the slot, Washington is planning to play two 5’9, 180 pound corners in their nickel, with Trey Amos, who is a giant by this group’s standards at 6’1, 190, set to play start at the other outside spot. That corner group will work with a safety group that added Nick Cross from the Colts, which gives the Commanders one more playable safety, but I don’t see Cross as a field-tilter.
Daron Payne was a “red” (plus) player who was “blue” (elite) on his best days in several of his earlier seasons, but that player seems to be gone, and while Newton could progress, it’s hard to think any of the other defensive tackles are suddenly going to up their standard.
Add it all up, and you have a defense that is different, but aside from swapping a version of Bobby Wagner on the verge of retirement for Styles, I question how meaningful any of those changes will be, and given how atrocious this defense has been for the past two seasons, I have a tough time seeing how one rookie linebacker is going to swing that.
Final Takeaways
It’s pretty wild that Washington could be seen as an organization in distress when they have an incredibly talented quarterback entering the third year of his rookie deal, but I’m not sure how else you slice it. The Commanders obviously won their share of games in Daniels’s rookie year, sneaking into the playoffs and upsetting a very good Detroit team, but when you compare their roster to the Chicago Bears or New England Patriots, the other two teams who took quarterbacks in the Top 3 of the 2024 NFL Draft, the Commanders sure seem to be behind the eight-ball; the fact that they wound up signing Chaisson when the Patriots opted to add DreMont Jones instead of bringing Chaisson back speaks to that situation.
The Commanders could certainly turn this around, but even envisioning that scenario brings us back to the premise of the article; if that happens, it would seemingly have to be a result of Jayden Daniels putting together another outstanding season.
I believe Daniels will be a guy in this league if he is healthy, so I’m not totally out on the idea of him rekindling his chemistry with McLaurin and potentially getting himself back in the MVP conversation. But it feels like he’s got an uphill climb to do that, and the decision-makers in the organization are making the weight on his back heavier, rather than lightening the load.