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The Commanders have a new type: Younger, faster and with something to prove
That the Commanders’ front office, and coaches, and returning players have been able to convince so many free agents from so many winning organizations to come to D.C. and try to resurrect Washington’s magical 2024 campaign is a significant win. Yes, the Commanders had millions to throw at free agents. But a lot of other teams did, too. Few brought in as many upside plays as Washington did this past week.
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As of Sunday morning, Washington had signed 12 new players in free agency. (This doesn’t count the Commanders extending or re-signing players from last year’s roster, like Laremy Tunsil, Marcus Mariota and Treylon Burks.) Three of the new guys — wide receivers Dyami Brown and Van Jefferson and running back Jerome Ford — are likely more depth pieces than potential starters, and that’s not at all a criticism. The Commanders were destroyed by injuries last season, without enough depth to withstand catastrophic losses at position groups like wide receiver and cornerback.
Of the nine players that the Commanders signed who are likely to either start or play significant snaps next season, though, seven — Chenal, defensive end Odafe Oweh, edge K’Lavon Chaisson, nose tackle Tim Settle, defensive end Charles Omenihu, running back Rachaad White and cornerback Amik Robertson — come from teams that were in the playoffs in one or both of the last two seasons. Chaisson was in the Super Bowl last month; Settle’s Houston Texans played against Chaisson’s Patriots in the divisional round.
Safety Nick Cross came from the Indianapolis Colts, who just missed the playoffs each of the last two seasons. Only former Tennessee tight end Chig Okonkwo comes from a complete rebuilding program.
And: Nine of the 12 will be 28 or younger on opening day next season. (Settle and Omenihu will each turn 29 this summer.)
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None of that feels coincidental.
Washington still has lots of questions going into ’26 — on the field, and in the coaches’ box. Daniels has to show he’s able to stay available all season, and Blough has to show he’s capable of helping Daniels do so with his play calling. Jones has to immediately bring the best of what Brian Flores ran defensively in Minnesota, with an awful lot of new pieces. With this much roster churn, chemistry will be hard to find right away.
But the Commanders aren’t running it back, either in philosophy or along the depth chart. Even the most cynical among the team’s fan base can’t say Washington has played it safe so far this offseason.
Commanders Roundtable
Washington Commanders Sign Second Free Agent Running Back, Jerome Ford
Former Cleveland Browns running back Jerome Ford is expected to sign a one year deal with the Commanders, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. He becomes the second free agent addition in the room this offseason after the Commanders signed former Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Rachaad White to a one year deal.
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White adds stability in a bare rotation with the chance at stepping into a far less crowded running back room compared to Cleveland. After becoming a fifth round pick with the 156th overall selection in the 2022 NFL Draft, Ford arrived in Cleveland alongside Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt, D’Ernest Johnson and Demetric Felton.
A to Z Sports
Leo Chenal’s contract details with the Commanders emerge
The Commanders decided to continue their trend to get younger and faster on defense, and Chenal has a great opportunity to thrive in Washington. Peters signed him to a three-year, $24.75 million contract, but that didn’t tell the whole story.
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Chenal’s full contract details have emerged, and it makes his signing look even better for the Commanders. According to Spotrac, Chenal will be making $12.4 million guaranteed and only has a salary cap space hit of $4.32 million in 2026.
His cap hit goes up to $9.9 million in 2027, and there’s a possible out of his contract in 2028, which would make his contract a two-year $16.5 million contract. I don’t see him getting released after two years, but more like an extension to keep him around.
Chenal is just 25 years old, and the Commanders are getting a young LB playing at a high level at a very reasonable cost, which will only age like wine as time passes. This was an A+ signing by Peters, and an even better job getting him at this cost.
Heavy.com
Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport heaped praise on the Commanders for signing Chaisson after the former 1st round pick brought his career back to life with the New England Patriots in 2025.
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“The Washington Commanders went into the offseason with a clear and glaring need on the edge,” Davenport wrote. “And the team didn’t play around about addressing it … Last year with the New England Patriots, edge-rusher K’Lavon Chaisson finally looked the part of the first-round pick he was back in 2020, logging a career-high 7.5 sacks with the New England Patriots. At 26, Chaisson is only just now entering his prime. Playing opposite Oweh should help minimize double-teams. A 10-sack 2026 is a real possibility. And getting a 10-sack edge-rusher for $11 million on a one-year deal is a steal.”
Chaisson has approximately $20 million in career earnings through 6 seasons and should form one of the NFL’s most underrated edge combos.
“K’Lavon Chaisson and Odafe Oweh totaled almost twice as many pressures in 2025 as any other player currently on the Commanders roster,” NextGen Stats wrote on its official X account. “Chaisson also totaled 16 pressures and 3 sacks in four postseason games.”
Chaisson, 6-foot-3 and 254 pounds, was the star defensive player on arguably the greatest college football team of all time with LSU in 2019, when the Tigers went 15-0 and won the College Football Playoff National Championship.
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That team featured an NFL record 14 draft picks, including 5 1st round picks led by Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow, along with NFL All-Pro wide receivers Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson.
Commanders Wire
Who are the best free agent receivers still available for Commanders?
Jauan Jennings
The most notable is actually a player Peters knows considerably well. Jennings was not a star coming out of college at Tennessee. He wasn’t even drafted until the seventh round (217th overall) by the San Francisco 49ers while current Commanders GM Adam Peters was with the 49ers. For this reason, it might be surprising that Peters has not yet signed Jennings, seeing that WR Terry McLaurin is scheduled to count $34M against the 2027 salary cap. Jennings will turn 29 in July. The Commanders have seven receivers on their current roster, but they will definitely need to bring in another through free agency or the draft who can contribute next season.
Current receivers on the Commanders roster
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Ja’Corey Brooks (24) 6-3, 195
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Treylon Burks (25) 6-2, 225
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Jacoby Jones (24) 6-3, 228
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Jaylin Lane (23) 5-10, 196
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Luke McCaffrey (24) 6-2, 195
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Terry McLaurin (30) 6-0, 210
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Dyami Brown (26) 6-0, 195
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Van Jefferson (29) 6-1, 200
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Bleeding Green Nation
Eagles News: NFL insider says “the Eagles can’t pay Dallas Goedert if they’re keeping A.J. Brown”
“Tom, they’ve had conversations. They continue to have conversations. Some folks in Philly are like ‘Will you stop? He’s not getting traded!‘ Okay, then why are they talking? They’ve had plenty of conversations. And my understanding, talking to sources informed with the talks between Eagles and other teams is, they’ve had momentum towards deals in recent weeks and days and over this period of negotiating. They haven’t completed those trades. They haven’t resulted in an agreement on a trade for various reasons. They just haven’t come together.
There’s a lot of stuff going on with the Eagles. In fact, the Dallas Goedert part of this whole thing is … a big piece of it. Because Dallas Goedert had a void and if it triggered it was going to be a $20 million cap hit to the Eagles. That got pushed once. As my man Zach Berman in Philly reported, it got pushed AGAIN, now, to Monday.
That’s a part of it. Because Goedert and Brown are sort of interconnected. The Eagles can’t pay Goedert if they’re keeping Brown. And they can’t take both cap hits.
So, this is going to continue to go over the weekend. I don’t sense real momentum right now on this. But I’m sure Howie’s going to continue to make— have conversations … I shouldn’t say ”make calls” because he’s receiving calls … have conversations about A.J. Brown over the weekend. We’ll see. He’s still an Eagle right now. Will he be? At this point, I don’t know. I’m tired of guessing. We’ll let you know.
Over the Cap
The Dallas Goedert Void Date Situation
Dallas Goedert’s contract was supposed to expire back in February but the Eagles and Goedert agreed to push the date back to March 11th to give the team more time to work on an extension. When the contract wasn’t done the Eagles pushed the date (sort of) to March 13th to give the team two more days. Now its pushed again, this time to March 16th. So what exactly is going on here?
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The heart of the issue for the Eagles in this case is the dead money in Goedert’s contract. Due to using multiple bonuses in Goedert’s contract the Eagles deferred about $20.5 million in dead money to those void contract years. If the Eagles were to allow his contract to expire they would take that hit all at once rather than have some of it to use this year or carry over to next season.
It seems pretty clear that the Eagles will eventually trade AJ Brown. I doubt anyone will meet their price for a trade prior to this years draft, but if they did the Eagles would lose anywhere between $20 and $25 million in cap room. If the Eagles want to maintain their most leverage in trade talks to show they can trade him now that extra $6M from Goedert is pretty big. If they fail to trade, any cap saved on Goedert can be rolled over to next year to offset whatever costs there are with Brown’s release or trade.
What does Goedert gain with the wait? In the short term this certainly seems to give him leverage since it is clear the Eagles want him back. Eventually he loses leverage because the free agency well is drying up and he is keeping himself out of free agency by agreeing to these delays. Is a deal done as some have speculated? Probably not. You see how fast deals come together during free agency and they have had since January to work on this one and its not done yet, but it probably benefits both sides to get it done sooner rather than later at this point.
Iggles Blitz
Howie the Juggler
Right now Howie is facing a couple of very tough situations. He’s got the AJ Brown situation to deal with and he’s also trying to re-sign Dallas Goedert. Trading AJ is incredibly complex. He is a great player and the Eagles don’t want to deal him, but AJ seems to want out of town. Trying to get good value for a great player is never easy. Then you factor in the salary cap side of things and the deal is even harder to do.
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At this point it feels like AJ will be traded. That could happen next week, April or in June. Right now the Eagles are talking to at least three teams about this. The Patriots, Rams and Broncos all have interest. All three want to win a Super Bowl and could be in a “go for it” mode that would lead them to pay a steep price.
Normally this type of deal would be Howie’s primary focus. But he’s got to juggle this with DG’s situation as well. There was a deadline on Friday for the Eagles to re-sign Goedert or they would take on dead cap money. The Eagles don’t have much cap space so the smart move is to re-sign Goedert. He’s still a solid player and it feels like he wants to be back.
This situation isn’t easy because Goedert took a pay cut last year and I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled about that. I think he was hoping to hit the open market and get a good deal. Unfortunately the market for TEs this year featured a lot of activity, but no big deals. Teams didn’t throw big money at the TEs. There weren’t great options, but it was still surprising to see the contracts be so reasonable. There is a good TE class in the draft and that might affect things. It also feels like teams focused on other spots. Look at how edge rushers were getting huge deals. You can’t pay everyone.
Goedert knows that re-signing helps the Eagles. I’m sure that has him pushing for a figure that is higher than what Howie wants to pay.
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The Eagles structured Woolen’s contract so his cap hit this year is just $3.4M. They are trying to do everything possible to have enough space to make more moves, as well as being able to handle the cap ramifications of trading AJ.
If you want a more detailed explanation of the cap side of things, go read this piece.
Blogging the Boys
Cowboys free agency spending compared to last year may be a shock
Speaking at the NFL combine this year, Jerry Jones hinted at what some thought would be a free agency spending spree this year.
“I would bet that we will spend more money in free agency than we have,” Jones said. “I want to do everything we possibly can to stop somebody and to basically win some third downs more than we did last year. And so I think that would be the area that you would see me bust the budget,” Jones said.
The first thing to note, and the thing that almost everybody ignored, is that Jones was speaking specifically about busting the budget to win on third down. On defense, that would likely be about investing mostly in the defensive line, and that certainly has happened.
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However, the general assumption was that “busting the budget” meant significantly exceeding this year’s salary cap. But the way things are going, the Cowboys aren’t even spending at last year’s level on player acquisition.
This post was written on Saturday, March 14, which is the sixth day of free agency – the legal tampering period began on Monday, March 9, with free agency “officially” opening on Wednesday – and so far the Cowboys have spent a little over $145 million in total contract value on internal and external free agents (some contract data is still missing). By the sixth day of free agency last year, they had already spent $156 million.
Nobody is busting anything right now.
ESPN
Giants add WR Darnell Mooney on one-year contract, sources say
Free agent wide receiver Darnell Mooney is signing with the New York Giants on a one-year deal worth up to $10 million, sources told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler on Saturday.
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Mooney, 28, joins the wide receiver room alongside Malik Nabers and Darius Slayton. His presence could prove valuable with Nabers recovering this off-season from a torn ACL and full meniscus repair.
The Giants, who have said that Nabers is trending for a return at the start of training camp, also signed former Pittsburgh Steelers slot receiver Calvin Austin and re-signed Gunner Olszewski this past week to fortify their wide receiver room.
New York lost Wan’Dale Robinson as a free agent to the Tennessee Titans earlier this week. He led the Giants in receiving yards last season.
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Front Office Sports
Seahawks GM: State’s Millionaire Tax Will ‘Sting’ Player Recruitment
As pro athletes’ salaries continue to rise, the state-by-state differences in tax policy take on greater prominence—something now emerging in Washington state.
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The forthcoming arrival of a “millionaire’s tax” in Washington state is going to have a detrimental effect on player recruitment and roster development, at least according to Seahawks GM John Schneider—highlighting the growing intersection between athlete compensation and state tax policy.
Washington’s legislature approved the tax measure earlier this week, and it is headed for the signature of Gov. Bob Ferguson, who has already pledged his support. Though legal and ballot-box challenges are likely still forthcoming, the law is set to impose a 9.9% state tax on earnings in excess of $1 million annually, with first payments due in 2029. That elevated tax on high-income residents is countered by expanded tax rebates in lower income brackets.
That, in turn, could create a problem for the Seahawks, and likely their pro sports neighbors in Seattle, too. Washington previously did not have a state income tax.
“It’s gonna sting. There’s no question about it,” Schneider said on KIRO-AM. “All the pro teams here in town, [not having a state income tax has] always been a huge attraction, especially competing with the California teams. It’s been a big deal for us. So, yeah, it’s going to sting from a recruiting standpoint.”
Some extra information on taxation of NFL players:
NFL players pay state income tax in both the team’s home state and in the states where they play away games. This is managed through a formula based on “duty days” spent in each jurisdiction, meaning they owe taxes to every state where they play, practice, or attend meetings, known as the jock tax.
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Key Takeaways on NFL Tax Liability:
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Multiple Filings: Players typically file state tax returns in multiple states every year.
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“Duty Days” Calculation: Taxes are calculated based on the number of days spent in a state (e.g., training camp, games, meetings) divided by total season days.
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Home State: Players pay income tax to their team’s home state on their salary, except for teams located in states with no income tax (e.g., Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Washington).
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Away Game Tax: If a team plays in a high-tax state (e.g., California), players pay tax on the income earned for that specific game, even if their home state has no income tax.
This 2024 article offers some real-life numbers:
State Income Taxes and the 2024 NFL Draft Class
