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Daily Slop – 14 May 25 – Dan Quinn goes one-on-one for 18 minutes with Rich Eisen; Trey Hendrickson drama escalates

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A collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East, the NFL and sports in general, and a sprinkling of other stuff

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Articles

Riggo’s Rag

Excitement and frustration collide in early Commanders schedule news

Multiple 2025 matchups for Washington have already been released, while a few others can be logically deduced.

Washington will be competing in the first-ever Spanish international game on November 16 against the Miami Dolphins, giving the team a prime opportunity to be part of NFL history.

The best part, though? The contest takes the place of what was already set to be a road game for the Commanders.

Washington was set to play more away games (nine) than home games (eight) in 2025, but now it will be an even eight of each with this one coming at a neutral site. It’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

With the NFL set to release its full 2025 schedule on Wednesday, many of the league’s marquee prime-time matchups have already been announced in advance. For the Washington Commanders, it has been a mixed bag.

Many Washington fans were disappointed when the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles would be opening their season against the Dallas Cowboys, a slot the Commanders should have earned instead. Since then, two dates have been finalized, while two more can be considered likely.

Of those two confirmed dates, there are both positives and negatives to take away for the Commanders. Let’s take a look.

The good: Commanders lose a true road game in Madrid

Washington will be competing in the first-ever Spanish international game on November 16 against the Miami Dolphins, giving the team a prime opportunity to be part of NFL history.

The best part, though? The contest takes the place of what was already set to be a road game for the Commanders.

Washington was set to play more away games (nine) than home games (eight) in 2025, but now it will be an even eight of each with this one coming at a neutral site. It’s a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

The bad: Week 16 slate means likely Commanders’ holiday travel

The other Commanders game that was revealed ahead of time comes in Week 16, when they’ll host the Eagles on the Saturday before Christmas. It’s the same slot on the calendar that Philadelphia traveled to Northwest Stadium last season — a game that resulted in a statement 36-33 Washington triumph against the soon-to-be champions.

However, it also means it’s highly likely the Commanders will be playing on Christmas Day, and likely on the road at that.

Last season, the four teams that played on the Saturday before Christmas all played again at the most festive time of year, having been given an extra day of rest before the holiday. This season, the other two teams playing on Saturday are the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers, both of which appear on Washington’s schedule in 2025.

The Commanders will play the Bears at home and the Packers on the road this season. Since the Week 16 rivalry clash is a home fixture, it can be considered a safe bet that they’ll be in Green Bay on Christmas. This is highly inconvenient for travel purposes, as well as for players and other team members who would almost certainly prefer to be spending time with their families.

CBS Sports

Post-draft 2025 NFL QB Power Rankings: Commanders’ Jayden Daniels, Eagles’ Jalen Hurts lead the way


CBS Sports

NFL sophomore slumps: Will Commanders’ Jayden Daniels, Broncos’ Bo Nix avoid regression in Year 2?

Which players are likely to slip, or stay the course?

Daniels followed Stroud as Offensive Rookie of the Year, but he was even more dynamic, elevating Washington from hopeful rebuild to NFC heavyweight with effortless touch, mobility and crunch-time poise. It’s very possible the Commanders’ dependence on aging and/or injury-prone veterans (i.e. Deebo Samuel, Zach Ertz, Laremy Tunsil) could force Daniels to do too much. All in all, though, his setup looks deeper than it did in 2024, and it’s impossible to ignore the mettle he pairs with his physical gifts. Remember that he wasn’t necessarily a high-volume thrower until later in his magical rookie campaign.

Sophomore slump prediction: Should avoid

Commanders Wire

Trey Hendrickson upset with Bengals: What does this mean for the Commanders?

Hendrickson’s situation was back in the news Monday when he released the following statement to Adam Schefter of ESPN:

“No communication has taken place between my camp and the organization post draft,” the statement read. “The offers prior to the draft did not reflect the vision we shared and were promised last offseason if I continued to play at a high level. Coaches are aware of these past conversations. Rather than using collaboration to get us to a point to bring me home to the team, THEY are no longer communicating. I have been eagerly awaiting a resolution of this situation, but that’s hard to do when there is no discussion and an evident lack of interest in reaching mutual goals.”

So, what does this mean? Well, Hendrickson is clearly not happy with the Bengals. That doesn’t mean he’s going anywhere. He still has one year remaining on his deal, and Cincinnati is notoriously difficult to deal with.

Peters and head coach Dan Quinn have said all the right things about the current group of edge rushers. If the Commanders were to add someone from the outside, it would likely be a veteran free agent. The most impactful player they could still add would be Hendrickson.

Is that realistic? Remember, the Commanders are already down two draft choices for next season, including a second-rounder due to the Laremy Tunsil trade.

Commanders.com

Everything you need to know about Commanders’ 2025 schedule

The NFL announced during Round 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft that the schedule will be released on May 14 at 8 p.m. ET.

Thanks to the Commanders finishing second in the NFC East, they will play teams with the same standing in the NFC West, NFC South and AFC East. That list includes the Seattle Seahawks, who will travel to Northwest Stadium, the Miami Dolphins and the Atlanta Falcons. Washington will play the Falcons for the fifth consecutive season, and all the previous matchups have been close. Although the Commanders won each game, they were decided by a touchdown or less.

The Washington Commanders have been selected to play the Miami Dolphins at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain, in Week 16 as part of the NFL’s 2025 International Games. It will be the first-ever regular season NFL game played in the country. Kickoff time is set for 9:30am ET on Sun., Nov. 16 with the game being televised on NFL Network.

Fully refundable, time-stamped Priority Access deposits for travel packages for the NFL Madrid Game are available through On Location HERE!

Washington Post (paywall)

The last NFL draft in Washington was overshadowed by historic rout

The 1941 NFL draft was held at the Willard Hotel on Dec. 10, 1940, two days after Chicago shut out Washington in the NFL championship game at Griffith Stadium. The Bears had three first-round picks, prompting a new rule.

The last time Washington hosted the NFL’s premier offseason event was Dec. 10, 1940, at the Willard Hotel. The audience was limited to any hotel guests who happened to wander by the room where owners and coaches from the league’s 10 teams were meeting, as they took turns over 22 rounds selecting college seniors to bolster their rosters for the 1941 season.

Two days earlier, George Halas’s Chicago Bears had embarrassed Washington by a record-setting margin in the NFL championship game at D.C.’s Griffith Stadium. That stunning rout, not the draft, was the talk of the town.

The day before the 1941 draft, the league’s owners and coaches gathered at the Willard Hotel with NFL President Carl Storck to discuss other matters and to select an all-star squad to face the champion Bears in an exhibition. Washington owner George Preston Marshall and Coach Ray Flaherty held a farewell luncheon for the team in the same building that morning.

“They were an unspeaking, downcast lot,” The Post wrote of the Washington players in attendance. “They couldn’t explain why, after winning the National Pro League’s Eastern Division race, they went so completely in pieces in a game for the world’s championship with a team they previously had defeated.”

Halas, the Bears’ owner and coach, arrived at the Willard Hotel with the ninth overall pick and two additional first-round selections, which he had acquired in trades with cellar-dwelling Philadelphia and Pittsburgh the previous year. This was news to the rest of the league.

“To complicate an already confused situation, the Chicago Bears yesterday claimed they were entitled to the first choices of the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh clubs because of preseason player deals,” The Post reported. “Owner Bert Bell of the Eagles said no, but the report persisted.”

Philadelphia was slated to pick first. Pittsburgh, which finished tied with the Chicago Cardinals for the second-worst regular season record in 1940, was awarded the third pick after losing a coin flip. Both selections now belonged to the Bears.

It was too late for the other owners to prevent the recently crowned champions from reaping the benefits of Halas’s shrewd moves in the D.C. draft, but they passed a new rule, which has since been removed, prohibiting a last-place team from trading its first- or second-round draft pick before he has played at least one year with the team. The league also announced that the team that won the championship would pick last in future years. (Washington had the 10th and final pick of the first round in the 1941 draft after finishing with the best regular season record in 1940.)

By the end of it, 204 players had been selected. Only the five teams that finished in the bottom half of the standings drafted in rounds two and four, and the Bears forfeited their final four picks because league rules limited each team to 20 selections.

The most well-known of…Washington’s pick[s] [was] Forest Evashevski, who blocked for Harmon at Michigan and later co-starred in his movie debut.

Rather than sign with Washington, Evashevski pursued a career in coaching. After leading Iowa to a No. 2 national ranking and the Rose Bowl title after the 1958 season, he interviewed to be the Packers’ coach and general manager. Evashevski was offered the job, only to turn it down, before the Packers hired Vince Lombardi.

Podcasts & videos

Commanders HC Dan Quinn Talks Jayden Daniels, ’25 Season Goals & More w/ Rich Eisen | Full Interview

Jaylin Lane’s College Coach Raves About Commanders Draftee

Photos

NFC East links

Blogging the Boys

5 biggest questions for Cowboys over remaining offseason

How will things shake out at running back?

It could be an entirely new cast at RB this year after Dallas signed veterans Javonte Williams and Miles Sanders, then drafted Jaydon Blue and Phil Mafah. It will certainly look very different from 2024, and now the questions are who will actually make the team and how the touches will be split between them.

The rookies would seem to have the clearest paths to the roster. Your one sure bet is Blue, who is the frontrunner to be the primary back. Some have suggested he’s the most talented RB to come to Dallas since Ezekiel Elliott, but his size will limit him from being a workhorse and all-purpose back. Blue likely knocks Deuce Vaughn off the roster as the speed and receiving threat. Then Mafah, the one true power RB, is the logical choice to make up where Blue lacks. But he’ll have to deal with Hunter Luepke, who offers a lot of versatility as a blocker and special teamer.

That said, the veterans won’t go away quietly. Williams is still just 25 and, now further removed from a major 2022 knee injury, could have his best chance to shine. Sanders feels like an afterthought now, especially since the draft, but does bring the most experience to the mix. That matters more at other positions than RB, though.

Who’s the new backup quarterback?

Dallas gave up one of their fifth-round picks this year for Joe Milton III, making him their new developmental QB after one year in New England. But he won’t just be handed the immediate backup job as veteran Will Grier is also here to compete. There’s a chance at least one more passer will be added for Oxnard, at least as a camp arm, but we can expect Grier and Milton to get the bulk of the work as the Cowboys sort out QB2.

Dallas has generally preferred experienced veterans in the backup role. It used to be guys with ample starting experience like Brad Johnson, Jon Kitna, and Kyle Orton behind Tony Romo, and in 2020, Dallas let Cooper Rush go briefly so they could supposedly upgrade the spot with Andy Dalton. Rush eventually returned and became that veteran presence, so that would seem to give Grier an edge.

But while he’s been in the league since 2019, a third-round pick by Carolina, Grier hasn’t seen much action. He started two games for the Panthers as a rookie and hasn’t taken a single regular-season snap since. That doesn’t mean his experience from multiple camps and preseason isn’t valuable, but it does narrow the gap between him and a second-year prospect like Milton.

NFL league links

Articles

ESPN

Why Travis Hunter is ready to be the NFL’s next star

“He elevates not only this football team, not only this city, but the sport itself, right?” Gladstone said. “Along the way you can count however many drafts you want to, there are players who have the capacity to alter a game. There are players who have the capacity to alter the trajectory of a team. There are very few players who have the capacity to alter the trajectory of the sport itself. Travis, while he still has a lot to learn, in our eyes, has the potential to do just that.”

That’s really nothing new for Hunter, who has been billed as a generational talent since he starred on both sides of the ball at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia, then at Jackson State University, and finally Colorado — defying traditional positional expectations as a full-time receiver and cornerback along the way.

Hunter’s 2024 season at Colorado was one of the most impressive in NCAA history. He was the first player to earn two first-team All-America honors in the same season (all-purpose and cornerback), and he was a second-team All-American at receiver. He also was the first player in the history of the Walter Camp Football Foundation — the nation’s oldest All-America team — to be named first-team All-America on offense and defense.

Those who coached him along his journey have called him a prodigy and football savant while noting his humility. Now Hunter has the challenge of becoming the face of a long-struggling franchise while trying to establish himself as the NFL’s first full-time two-way player in more than 50 years.

No one has been a full-time player on both sides of the ball since Chuck Bednarik, who did it as a center and linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1949 to 1962.

To excel at both positions in 2025 would make Hunter one of the league’s biggest stars, and those around him believe he can not only handle that kind of stage but thrive — because he has been doing it all along.

Hunter has embraced the challenge.

“My job is to come out and be Travis Hunter,” he said. “Come out and play how they envision me to play and exceed all the expectations.”

Discussion topics

The Athletic (paywall)

Bengals’ Trey Hendrickson drama is as avoidable as it is out of control: Dehner Jr.

It appeared the Bengals learned their lesson when it came to allowing distractions to usher toxicity in the front door. They got deals done with Chase and Higgins. Even Mike Gesicki stuck around. The club checked every box Burrow laid out in his rounds of interviews, directing contract traffic in February.

All but one.

That one, and the inability to handle it effectively, continues to blow up in their face. In the last case, it blew up on their practice field.

Looking like he was somewhere between his job as a school resource officer and afternoon tee time, Hendrickson chatted with new defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery, Bengals public relations and security staffers, along with a few teammates. In a world of jerseys, cleats and workout shorts, he stuck out like his 17.5 sacks on last year’s defense.

This was a mess.

An undeniably avoidable mess. On both sides.

The Bengals granted Hendrickson permission to seek a trade a week before free agency. They could have used the $16 million in free agency to supplement the pass rush, used the extra draft pick to add another young rusher and allowed the collection of top picks to start over. There would be no drama. There would be no OTA media days. There would be a franchise that paid its best players and found a solution to make the balance sheet work in a way that made sense for them.

Or, if they didn’t believe in that method, pay Hendrickson what he wanted and make it work for a club with $68 million available in 2026 cap space (ninth overall).

Either way, be definitive and proactive — for once.

Instead, the same old passive problems that caused this mess in the first place showed up again. So they were left dealing with an outburst after coach Zac Taylor let Hendrickson know about the potential fines outlined in the CBA associated with missing minicamp.

[Hendrickson] is grasping to recapture them with his voice and feel like he’s found any leverage.

The problem is he has none. There aren’t many levers players can pull in today’s NFL. Not in his situation. Inevitably, he has to decide if he’s willing to back up his words, stated explicitly on Tuesday, that he refuses to play on his current contract or be willing to take the best offer the Bengals have on the table.

All aTwitter