Khaleke Hudson has been down this road previously.
The former Michigan Wolverine linebacker has played hard for four seasons on special teams but has gotten little chance to play on the defensive side of the ball.
Last week against the Jets, Hudson was graded by Pro Football Focus (PFF) to have recorded an 82.5. The significance of this was it meant Hudson graded out as the highest Commanders defensive player for the game.
Following Hudson was Kendall Fuller (78.0), Jonathan Allen (76.0), Percy Butler (73.5), Emmanuel Forbes (70.2) and David Mayo (69.7).
While Ron Rivera’s linebackers have struggled for much of the season, Hudson’s defensive snaps have remained peculiarly quite low.
Cody Barton was brought in to replace free agent Cole Holcomb who signed with Pittsburgh. But Barton often struggled. Several of us asked at various times this season why was Hudson again being relegated to special teams primarily?
Most often, the Commanders coaches determined to not play the two most athletic linebackers. So Hudson again found himself not even seeing a single defensive snap in four games. And then, in three other games, he saw only 1, 8 and 6 defensive snaps.
This is the same Hudson who coaches limited to a grand total of five defensive snaps in 2022 going into the season finale against Dallas. That day he was permitted to play all 67 defensive snaps making 7 tackles.
With two games remaining, Hudson is playing more now, being given six defensive starts. He has made 50 tackles, 2 quarterback hits, 1 quarterback sack and 2 tackles for a loss.
Hudson enjoyed a big game last week against the Jets with 8 solo tackles and two passes defended. He was also in on 7 assisted tackles.