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Daily Slop – 20 May 25 – Commanders have one of the NFL’s most expensive wide receiver rooms

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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

Commanders links

Articles

Pro Football Focus

Jayden Daniels ranked among PFF’s top 25 players under 25

It has been just over a year since the Washington Commanders drafted quarterback Jayden Daniels with the No. 2 overall pick, and he has already placed himself among the best young players in the NFL.

Daniels, the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year after setting multiple team and league records, was listed No. 4 on Pro Football Focus’ list of top 25 players under 25 entering this season. He is the highest-ranked player from the 2025 class on the list.

Detroit Lions offensive tackle Penei Sewell (No.1), Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua (No.2) and Baltimore Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton (No. 4) are the only players ranked ahead of him.

“According to PFF WAR, Daniels accounted for more than three wins on the year alone,” Macri wrote, “which was a top-five mark in the league.”

Commanders Wire

Washington Commanders have one of the NFL’s most expensive wide receiver rooms

Based on total cap hit, Terry McLaurin is the biggest hit with a $25.5 million cap hit. Deebo Samuel is next at $5.151, followed by Noah Brown with $3.01. McLaurin and Samuel make up over 71% of the cap hit to the Commanders in 2025.

Remember, this was by design. Peters knew he needed to get weapons for Daniels, so he did. McLaurin’s deal was done before Peters came on board, and it’s likely he’ll negotiate a new contract before he becomes a free agent next spring.

Commanders.com

Top 5 plays from Kain Medrano’s college career

Medrano gets a pick-six against Nebraska.

Medrano was one of the most athletic linebackers in this year’s draft class, and that ability shined whenever he had the ball in his hands.

Medrano’s only defensive touchdown in his college career came in 2024, when the Bruins took on Nebraska. Quarterback Dylan Raiola tried to float a pass over three UCLA defenders in the third quarter, but Medrano leapt up to grab it first. It didn’t take long for him to sprint past most of the Nebraska offense and head for the end zone.

Raiola was the last obstacle between Medrano and a touchdown. Raiola made a dive for Medrano’s feet, but the linebacker hurdled over the attempted tackle and finished things off by giving the Bruins a 20-7 lead.

ESPN

Best NFL team fits for remaining free agents, trade candidates

J.K. Dobbins, RB

Best team fit: Washington Commanders

Finding an ideal fit for a veteran running back isn’t easy at this point in the offseason, especially for a player with Dobbins’ rich injury history. He missed four games with an MCL sprain last season, yet he still managed a career high in rushing yards (905) and tied a career high in rushing touchdowns (9).

In Kliff Kingsbury’s offense in Washington, I could see Dobbins providing competition for Brian Robinson Jr. as the early-down runner. Dobbins can run between the tackles and has the juice to create big plays on the ground. He took 27 carries for 10 or more yards last season.

Podcasts & videos

Jacory Croskey-Merritt is READY to be a Washington Commander | Raising Hail with the Rookies | NFL

Brian Robinson sends message to doubters!

Two former Redskins players throwing punches in the media

Riggo’s Rag

WNBA beef ignites bitter social media war between former Washington stars

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to ignite the blue touch paper if something is simmering underneath. That proved to be the case between two former Washington Commanders stars on social media.

Everyone has an opinion regarding the ongoing feud between WNBA stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Their latest altercation in the season opener saw this come to the fore again. Both players brushed it off, which should have been the end of it. But that didn’t stop opinions on social media from making it a trending topic quickly.

Robert Griffin III and Ryan Clark traded blows on the issue. The subject quickly became personal, which centered on the former quarterback becoming enraged about comments surrounding his wife, sparking a video retort.

Clark has obviously felt a type of way about Griffin for some time. Both were teammates in Washington. Both worked together on ESPN. There didn’t seem to be any real issues, but some hidden resentment couldn’t be more obvious.

Neither comes out of this with much (if any) credit. If Clark and Reese were willing to move on, that should have been enough for everyone else to do the same.

Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese speak on flagrant foul and heated moment

RG3: Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark – The Truth behind this heated Rivalry

Ryan Clark on recent Angel Reese & Caitlin Clark flare up & reacts to RG3’s comments| The Pivot

NFC East links

NFL.com

Eagles HC Nick Sirianni agrees to multiyear contract extension following Super Bowl win

Sirianni, fresh off piloting the franchise to its second Super Bowl victory, and the Eagles have agreed to terms on a multiyear contract extension, the team announced on Monday.

Following three seasons as the Indianapolis Colts offensive coordinator, Sirianni was hired in 2021 by Lurie and general manager Howie Roseman to replace Doug Pederson as the Eagles’ head coach.

In each of Philadelphia’s four seasons with Sirianni at the helm, the Eagles have flown to the postseason.

However, it’s hardly been all sunshine and rainbows.

Following the team’s Super Bowl LVII loss to the Chiefs, Philadelphia began the 2023 season going 10-1. The Eagles crumbled down the stretch, though, backing into the playoffs at 11-6 before they were eliminated by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in lopsided fashion, 32-9, in the Wild Card Round.

Bleeding Green Nation

Joe Douglas is reportedly returning to the Eagles

The Eagles’ former vice president of player personnel is returning to Philly after being fired by the New York Jets.

The Philadelphia Eagles are hiring Joe Douglas “in a senior scouting role,” according to a report from the Inquirer’s Jeff McLane.

Douglas returns to Philly after being fired as the New York Jets’ general manager last November. At the time, we wrote about how a reunion with the Eagles could be on the table:

Douglas obviously failed to replicate success in North Jersey with the Jets going 30-64 during his time there. He ultimately never managed to get the quarterback position right, which is kind of a big deal. The Jets’ ownership being bad is also kind of a problem.

Big Blue View

New York Giants favored in just one 2025 game

The New York Giants are favored to win just one game in 2025, according to oddsmakers at DraftKings Sportsbook.

Here is a look at the early odds in each of the Giants’ 2025 games. It might be interesting to note how these change when we actually get to each individual game.

Week 1 — Giants at Washington Commanders

Line: Giants +7.5

I get it. The Commanders won 12 games and went to the playoffs last year, while the Giants won just three and went back to the drawing board. But, the Giants’ two losses to Washington last season came by a total of eight points. I would be tempted to take the Giants with the points.

Week 2 — Giants at Dallas Cowboys

Line: Giants +4.5

This is probably what should be expected. Again, though, the Giants lost two games to Dallas by a total of 11 points last season. If you think the Giants are improved beating the Cowboys once in 2025 should not seem impossible. I picked the Giants to win this game.

Week 3 — Giants vs. Kansas City Chiefs

Line: Giants +6.5

I kind of hate the Giants’ home opener being on a Monday night against this team. If the Giants are already 0-2, this line might be bigger when game week rolls around.

NFL league links

Articles

ESPN

Is the NFL ready to let stars play Olympic flag football?

When NFL owners convene in Minnesota this week for their spring meeting, they are expected to vote on a resolution released last Thursday that aims to make this a reality. The vote could happen Wednesday, and the resolution needs to be approved by at least 24 of the 32 team owners. But is the potential agreement — which proposes limits on how many players can participate, outlines injury protections for players and clubs and addresses how much time a player will miss with his NFL team — enough to win over the remaining skeptics?

Many of the final details remain a long way off and are yet to be negotiated between the NFL, the players union and Olympic governing bodies. For now, the proposal calls for the six participating nations which have not yet been identified to select a maximum of one NFL player each, with Team USA expected to be capped at 10 players.

“I think overall, [flag football in the Olympics is] a great thing,” Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutenkunst said. “I’d love it if we kept the NFL players out of it.”

IF OWNERS VOTE to pass the resolution, it merely authorizes the NFL to work toward the goals outlined in the proposal, with all future agreements subject to the outcome of negotiations with the NFL Players Association and the various Olympic governing bodies.

Injury protection would, perhaps, be the biggest obstacle.

Currently, injuries that occur away from official team functions are classified as “non-football injuries,” and teams are not required to pay a player’s salary while he recovers from one. But the resolution proposes injury protection and salary-cap relief stemming from an injury to a player participating in the Olympics.

The NFL needs only to go back in its own history to find the nightmare scenario. Patriots running back Robert Edwards suffered a catastrophic left knee injury while playing a sanctioned flag football game on a beach in Hawaii during Pro Bowl week in February 1999. Edwards tore all three ligaments in the knee, partially tore a fourth and also ruptured an artery after jumping to catch a pass. He missed three full seasons, returned for a brief stint with the Miami Dolphins in 2002 and eventually retired.

The league would also seek an agreement with Olympic officials to ensure that NFL minimum standards are met for medical staffs and playing fields used for competitions.

Not to be ignored here is the potential conflict of Olympic duties with the NFL’s offseason and training-camp schedule. NFL training camps occur in late July, and the ‘28 Games are scheduled for July 14-30.

DARRELL “HOUSH” DOUCETTE is one of the world’s premier flag players. A quarterback on Team USA and the longest-tenured member of the national team, Doucette was among the players called upon by the NFL to give players a crash course on flag football before recent Pro Bowls.

Doucette doesn’t have the name recognition of the NFL’s biggest stars, but he still believes he is just as well-suited to play for a gold medal as many of the best players in pro football. He welcomes the competition — just not the assumptions about the end result.

“We just don’t think they’re going to be able to walk on the field and make the Olympic team because of the name,” he told The Guardian last year. “They still have to go out there and compete.”

He’s got a point.

The idea of NFL players competing in the Olympics might be exciting, but there are a slew of players who have been competing on the global stage in flag football — and, in the case of Team USA, dominating — for years. The U.S. men have won the past five world championships. The women have won the past three.

The NFL has players with ties to more than 70 countries, so there is a long list of nations that players could potentially represent in the Olympics. But for American players and those from countries with a long history of competing, there should be no assumption that NFL players will be best suited to what is a very different game.

Currently, there are various requirements set forth by USA Football that players must go through before ascending to the U.S. national team (each national team can develop its own process). Athletes who advance receive an invite to the USA Football trials, where the pool is trimmed to 60 players. Those players advance to the USA Football training camp, where the final roster — 10 players for the 2028 Olympics — will be selected.

That’s a potentially lengthy process, perhaps complicating NFL players’ ability to pursue a roster spot. But a streamlined pathway for NFL players could be implemented if they receive approval to compete.

But for NFL players to be a part of that effort, a labyrinth of issues must first be navigated. And the parties aren’t quite there just yet.

NFL.com

Niners, LB Fred Warner agree to terms on three-year, $63 million contract extension

San Francisco and linebacker Fred Warner have agreed to terms on a three-year, $63 million contract extension that includes $56.7 million guaranteed, NFL Network Insiders Ian Rapoport and Mike Garafolo reported Monday.

The 28-year-old’s pact with the Niners elevates him from second in per-year annual salary for inside linebackers to first, coming in at $21 million per year, just ahead of the Ravens’ Roquan Smith ($20 million per season).

Warner, who had two years remaining on his contract but nothing guaranteed, was in need of a new deal as he was set to enter the 2025 season with a $29.2 million cap hit.

Discussion topics

NFL.com

Most/least vulnerable NFL division champs: Chiefs to repeat in AFC West? Lions in trouble?

Rank 1 – Detroit Lions – NFC North · 2024 record: 15-2

The NFC North came down to the final game of the 2024 regular season. There’s no reason to think the division, which just sent three teams to the playoffs, won’t be as ferocious in 2025, particularly with the anticipated improvement of the Bears, who are coming off a last-place finish. The Vikings are making a switch at quarterback, but how do you bet against Kevin O’Connell making the right choice and having J.J. McCarthy ready, especially after Minnesota did so much to fortify the interior of the offensive line, the team’s biggest weakness in 2024? The Packers gave Jordan Love a first-round wide receiver, while the Bears have done everything possible to make life better for Caleb Williams, from hiring Ben Johnson as head coach to overhauling the interior O-line to spending their first two draft picks on TE Colston Loveland and WR Luther Burden III. All of that makes for a whole lot of competition for the Lions, who are still flush with talent, but must adjust to two new coordinators after Johnson and Aaron Glenn got head-coaching jobs. Even if that process turns out to be seamless, it’s easy to envision the division again coming down to the final week.

Rank 3 – Philadelphia Eagles – NFC East · 2024 record: 14-3

It’s been more than two decades since the NFC East had a repeat winner (the Eagles held the title from 2001 through 2004), and Philadelphia could be in a dogfight to hold on to the crown again this season. The Commanders are a team on a very rapid rise, and whatever unsteadiness Jayden Daniels showed in his rookie season should be improved in 2025, especially because he will be behind an improved offensive line and have Deebo Samuel to target in addition to Terry McLaurin. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman conducts a clinic in roster replenishment, but he did lose plenty of big-name talent on defense. Philadelphia had one of the most balanced rosters in the NFL last season, and the team still has an extraordinary cast of offensive weapons. This place in the ranking is a reflection not of any thought that the Eagles will take a significant step back — they almost certainly won’t, barring injury disasters to Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley — but of their current reality. They have an in-division rival who is coming on strong and NFL history is on the side of a change at the top.

Potential rule changes

Pro Football Talk

NFL considers rule change that could make onside kicks easier to recover

The league is considering changing onside kick rules to make it easier for the kicking team to recover, adding language that restricts where players on the receiving team can line up for onside kick recovery.

“The receiving team may have a maximum of three players in the setup zone not on the restraining line, but never more than one player in each of the three areas within the setup zone bordered by the sidelines and inbounds lines,” the new language says.

That language is going to be confusing to most football fans, as the league’s new kickoff rules have introduced a new vocabulary that hasn’t caught on with the general public. But the gist is that the new rule is designed to spread out the receiving team and give the kicking team a better chance of placing an onside kick into an area where no one on the receiving team is waiting to recover it.

Any restrictions on how the receiving team can line up on onside kicks will at least in theory give the kicking team a slightly better chance of recovering, but the reality is that even if this new rule passes, onside kicks will remain extremely hard for the kicking team to recover. Unless the NFL goes back to allowing the kicking team to line up as many players as they want on either side of the kicker, and allows those players to get a running start, don’t expect many onside kicks to succeed. And the NFL has no interest in doing that because of concerns that the old onside kick rules risked too many injuries from high-speed collisions in confined spaces.

Front Office Sports

NFL Owners Set to Vote on Tush Push, Olympics, Playoff Seeding

NFL owners are gathering this week for another round of annual league meetings, and several major votes could reshape the sport both on and off the field.

The meetings, which begin Tuesday in Minneapolis and will run through Wednesday, are the last time all 32 owners are scheduled to be together before the 2025 season begins in September.

The long-awaited vote on the Tush Push will arrive after tabling a potential vote on banning the play—or changing rules that will dramatically alter it. NFL owners will once again consider doing away with the quarterback sneak that the Super Bowl LIX champion Eagles have perfected in recent years.

Owners are also scheduled to vote on a proposal to change seeding in the NFL playoffs.

The Lions have proposed changing seeding in the playoffs so that non-division champions with better regular-season records than division champions can be seeded higher. That would mean hosting a home game is no longer guaranteed for each conference’s four division champions. Under the proposal, division champions would win seeding tiebreakers over non-division champions.

A seemingly less controversial vote will be held on a resolution that would allow active NFL players to participate in the flag football competition at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The Athletic (paywall)

Explaining the NFL playoffs reseeding proposal: How would a rule change impact the postseason?

[T]here was hesitance among owners to strip division champions of their first-round home-field advantage, prompting the modification to reseed after the wild-card round. Under the new proposal, teams would be reseeded based strictly on record for the divisional round, regardless of whether a team won its division or made the playoffs as a wild card.

Change would begin in the second round. Instead of the top-seeded team playing the lowest-remaining seed in the divisional round, the team with the best record would play the team with the worst record. The team with the second-best record would play the team with the second-worst record.

If the new proposal had been implemented last year, here’s how the NFC playoff picture would have looked:

NFC wild-card round

  • No. 1 Detroit Lions (15-2, NFC North champion): Bye
  • No. 2 Philadelphia Eagles (14-3, NFC East champion) host No. 7 Green Bay Packers (11-6, wild card)
  • No. 3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-7, NFC South champion) host No. 6 Washington Commanders (12-5, wild card)
  • No. 4 Los Angeles Rams (10-7, NFC West champion) host No. 5 Minnesota Vikings (14-3, wild card)

Under the current format, the Commanders, after upsetting the Bucs, traveled to Detroit for the divisional round, and the Eagles hosted the Rams. Under the proposed new format, the divisional-round matchups would have changed because the Commanders had a better record than the Rams.

NFC divisional round under new proposal

  • No. 1 Lions (15-2) host No. 4 Rams (10-7)
  • No. 2 Eagles (14-3) host No. 3 Commanders (12-5)

All aTwitter