Adam Peters and his staff worked miracles in rebuilding the moribund roster he inherited. The Washington Commanders axed virtually all the remaining draft picks made by the previous regime and used both the college ranks and free agency to turn over close to two-thirds of the players from 2023.
The results were immediately apparent.
Washington went from a team that struggled to reach .500 to the NFC championship game in Peters’s first season. Still, he realized plenty of holes remained. The general manager set out to fill them as soon as the 2024 campaign concluded.
He needed a reliable second option at wide receiver. In comes Deebo Samuel Sr. The offensive line was still a work-in-progress, and with the loss of star guard Sam Cosmi, the need to beef up the front grew even larger. Laremy Tunsil arrived via trade, and Josh Conerly Jr. through the draft. In need of a perimeter corner, Peters drafted Trey Amos.
Through it all, one glaring hole remained. The Commanders lacked a quality edge rusher on defense. There have been times this offseason when it has appeared Peters has willfully ignored the position.
Who will be pressuring opposing quarterbacks for the Commanders in 2025?
Last season, the Commanders piled up 43 sacks. That’s a pretty good number. It put Washington in the top half of the league. But it is also fairly misleading.
Though Washington did get opposing quarterbacks on the ground 43 times, their pressure rate, which combines sacks along with hits and hurries, was toward the lower echelons. What’s more, the Commanders had one of the highest blitz percentages in the entire NFL. A high blitz percentage paired with a low total pressure number is the virtual definition of a team with a below-average pass rush.
The Commanders did get a solid year of pass rushing from Dante Fowler Jr. He led the team with 10.5 sacks. But Peters seemed uninterested in re-signing him, and he is now wearing a Dallas Cowboys uniform again.
Washington generated decent pressure from interior players. Daron Payne, Jonathan Allen, Jeremy Chinn, Bobby Wagner, and Johnny Newton combined for 13 of the team’s 43 sacks. That means players on the edge accounted for 30, and more than a third of those left town with Fowler.
So, who is going to replace that pass pressure in 2025?
The Commanders currently have 10 players who can realistically line up on the edge. They have several others who might man the spot in special packages. Most of these players are defensive ends, which befits a team that runs a base 4-3 front. None of those is an elite pass rusher.
Washington projects to begin the season with two very solid two-way players on the ends of the line. Both Dorance Armstrong Jr. and Deatrich Wise Jr. are veterans who can apply pressure while also playing the run very well. Neither is a dominant pass rusher.
Armstrong’s best sack total came in 2022 when he had 8.5. He has regressed somewhat since then, ringing up just five last season.
Wise has had an almost identical trajectory. He hit a career high in 2022 with 7.5 sacks. He also recorded five last year. The Commanders' starting ends are good players, but they don't strike fear into the opposition.
Amongst the other ends — Clelin Ferrell, Jalyn Holmes, Andre Jones Jr., and International Pathways acquisition T.J. Maguranyanga — none appears to be an immediate answer to the pass rush problem. Javontae Jean-Baptiste has the physical tools to apply pressure, but he has a lot of developing ahead.
That leaves three other players who may be best suited to replace Fowler’s 2024 production. One of them is free agent Jacob Martin.
He will probably line up at end, though he has played linebacker in 3-4 fronts before. Martin could step into the hybrid end/linebacker role that Fowler played last season.
Martin has been around for seven years, mostly as a backup and special-teams player. He has shown very good pass-rushing skills in limited chances, so the question remains whether he can earn major snaps and become a key contributor.
The biggest wild card on the defense this season may well be Peters’ surprise pick in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL Draft. That is Kain Medrano.
At about 220 pounds, he is much smaller than a standard edge. It is unlikely he will be tasked with attacking the quarterback consistently. But he has the type of reckless athleticism that can cause havoc in a backfield. Expect defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. to at least experiment with what the rookie can do as a pass-rushing force.
The Commanders do have one player who could almost certainly develop into an above-average pass-rushing edge. The problem is that they rely on Frankie Luvu to do so much more than simply go after opposing passers.
Luvu drops into coverage and plays the run. In the Commanders' 4-2-5 base, he often lines up in a more central position next to Bobby Wagner. He will certainly cheat to one side as a more traditional edge player in some packages, but the former undrafted free agent is at his best when he is in the middle of the field, able to track the ball wherever it goes.
Do the Commanders have enough firepower to rig up a potent edge rushing presence this year? There are a lot of skeptics out there, and rightfully so.
It was probably never realistic to think that an elite player like Myles Garrett or Trey Hendrickson would be available in a trade. And if Peters wasn’t sold on any of the edge options he had when his turn came to draft, he was smart not to chase the position.
Still, options are floating around in the free agent market. A lot of veterans who, even at 32 or 33 years old and represent an upgrade, remain unsigned.
Za’Darius Smith tops a lot of fans’ lists, but Jadeveon Clowney, Matt Judon, and former Washington draftee Preston Smith remain available. There is a decent chance that Peters still has a card or two up his sleeve.
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