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Daily Slop – 21 May 25 – NFL owners meet today; will vote on ‘tush push’, playoff re-seeding, onside kick & more

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New Commanders Owners
Photo by John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images

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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NFL.com

Who could dethrone Super Bowl champion Eagles?

Rank 6 – Washington Commanders – 2024 record: 12-5

Washington was the feel-good story of 2024, which amounts to good and bad news. The good news is that head coach Dan Quinn immediately established a winning culture within a franchise that had been languishing for years and found a burgeoning superstar in quarterback Jayden Daniels, last year’s Offensive Rookie of the Year. The bad news is that the Commanders won’t be sneaking up on anybody any longer.

General manager Adam Peters was once again aggressive in his second offseason on the job, as he engineered trades for former 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel and former Texans left tackle Laremy Tunsil. Washington still needs more help when it comes to rushing the passer, but it’s obvious how this team wants to win games. The Commanders plan on putting as much pressure as possible on opponents with Daniels engineering a prolific offense. Last season, Washington went on a seven-game winning streak before losing to Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game. The Commanders scored at least 30 points in four of those wins, including 45 in a Divisional Round victory at Detroit and 36 in a Week 16 triumph over Philadelphia. The Commanders ultimately proved last season that they’re not intimidated by anyone.

This season will bring a different set of tests, including adjusting to how defenses attack Daniels in Year 2 — remember the struggles that the highly touted Texans experienced last year after quarterback C.J. Stroud had exploded onto the scene as a rookie in 2023? — and whether Washington can handle life as a perceived heavyweight.

Commanders Wire

What are the Commanders’ running backs plans for 2025?

Robinson Jr. had multiple games last year where he was simply ineffective, inefficient, and unimpressive. Was Robinson injured? Was he simply not reading the plays and their developments properly?

If Robinson again struggles, the question becomes, who do the Commanders look to most to run on first and or second downs?

  • I know this sounds crass, but at least consider this fact that Croskey-Merritt was drafted by Adam Peters and Chris Rodriguez was not.
  • Peters did decide to bring back Rodriguez, and it shouldn’t be dismissed that Rodriguez did have good showings against the Giants (11-52) and the Titans (13-94) and had a couple of really nice runs, including a touchdown run against the Falcons in that Sunday night overtime win.
  • Jeremy McNichols’s special-teams play might be the significant factor in why Rodriguez was the RB4 and not RB3 most of the 2024 season. McNichols is valued for his work ethic, and seeing Peters and Quinn have brought back McNichols as well suggests that his fumble in the NFC Championship game did not close the door of opportunity.
  • Croskey-Merritt? His playing only one game last season at age 23 left him forgotten by many teams in the draft. Had he played more, he would have been drafted a round or two higher than in the seventh round. He exhibits some real explosiveness, so he may be battling Michael Wiley, who had some really good moments in the 2024 preseason and spent the entire season on the Practice Squad.
Riggo’s Rag

5 Commanders veterans primed to flip the NFL on its head in 2025

Marshon Lattimore – Commanders CB

When the Commanders sacrificed significant assets to land four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Marshon Lattimore before the 2024 trade deadline, it was seen as a major coup. It was the move that formally announced Washington’s football franchise back on the national stage after decades in the wilderness.

Things didn’t go according to plan. Lattimore came into the franchise with a hamstring complication that he couldn’t shake off. The former first-round pick featured in just two regular-season games. He came back for the postseason but never looked right despite an impressive display versus the Detroit Lions in the divisional round.

The fact that Washington had to take Lattimore off the likes of Mike Evans and A.J. Brown spoke volumes. Speculation rose about his future after the campaign, but general manager Adam Peters emphatically stated that the Ohio State graduate was part of the team’s plans.

With an extended period to fully heal from his hamstring ailment and a full offseason to immerse himself in Dan Quinn and Joe Whitt Jr.’s schematic concepts, Lattimore has the potential to bounce back accordingly. And he’s now got a big chip on his shoulder after receiving heavy criticism throughout the previous campaign.

If Lattimore can return to his brilliant, shutdown best, it’ll be like having a new signing in Washington.

Podcasts & videos

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Big Blue View

Just how good was Malik Nabers in 2024?

And what does he have to do to get even better in 2025?

[T]he question is no longer whether Malik Nabers was a good draft pick. Clearly he was. The bigger question is: How good can he become? For the record, Nabers finished ninth in Pro Football Focus receiving grade among all wide receivers with at least 50 targets last season, behind Puka Nacua, Nico Collins, A.J. Brown, Mike Evans, St. Brown, Drake London, Tee Higgins, and Justin Jefferson. Fans tend to be suspicious of PFF grades, which are subjective, but it’s hard to disagree with that list as the current royalty of NFL receivers. In yards, Nabers was 11th, in yards per reception tied for 32nd, and in TDs tied for 18th.

Fans like hard stats such as yards, TDs, etc. The problem with hard stats for receivers is that there is a QB on the other end of every pass. If you look at the WR names mentioned above, the QBs on the other end included names like Burrow, Goff, Herbert, Stafford, Stroud, and Hurts. For Nabers, the names were Jones, Lock, and DeVito. On at least one occasion last season, the Giants’ loss to Philadelphia in October, Nabers was hardly targeted in the second half and he didn’t like it, saying, “Watch the tape…I was open.” That wasn’t quite true, but no one came out of the 2024 season thinking that the Giants’ QBs had fully tapped Nabers’ potential.

So it would seem that Nabers will have an opportunity to move up these lists in 2025 and beyond with names like Wilson, Winston, or Dart throwing to him.

a useful resource is the analysis site Reception Perception, a small group led by Matt Harmon that analyzes every snap of the more prominent NFL wide receivers and classifies their success on every pass play. “Success” is defined as whether the receiver got open, so it is more quarterback-proof than the hard stats, but it does not judge whether the receiver caught passes thrown to him (Nabers did have 8 drops), nor does it try to figure out where the receiver was in the quarterback’s read progression. It just focuses on getting open against coverage. Reception Perception (hereafter “RP”) just began posting their 2024 WR analyses this month, so rankings below are incomplete as of this writing, but there are enough of the top receivers posted already to get a feel for where Nabers stands relative to his peers.

The only way to really limit Nabers was to double-cover him. He “only” got open 50% of the time when doubled, and he was doubled 24 times. The only WRs in the current RP database to be doubled as much or more were McConkey (24 times, 54% success), Harrison (28 times, 61% success), and Davante Adams (30 times, 57% success). No other wide receiver tracked thus far by RP was doubled any more than 15 times. That’s probably a feature of the database not yet being complete – in 2023 Justin Jefferson led the NFL in being doubled (52 times, 71% success), followed by Adams (42 times, 79% success), Garrett Wilson (41 times, 80% success), and Ja’Marr Chase (40 times, 70% success). Jefferson, Wilson, and Chase have not yet been tracked for 2024.

The bottom line is that Nabers has quickly taken his place among the upper echelon of receivers in the NFL despite being hamstrung by inadequate quarterback play. He is still a notch below the very best the NFL has to offer, though. Finding seams in zone coverage more often and beating double coverage more consistently are what could elevate him to the level of today’s truly elite receivers.

Blogging the Boys

NFC East rival expresses worry after George Pickens trade

During a YouTube conversation Brown was quoted as saying:

“We’re going to have to worry about Dallas, for sure. We’re going to have to worry about them. No, I like the trade. I do like the trade. I like the competition. I like George Pickens, I like CeeDee Lamb. And they collab. It’s going to be exciting to watch. Because all that does is bring the best out of us. So, if we know how they coming, we are going to have to step it up.”

Whenever a trade is made and players on division rival teams make comments on the trade, that should be listened to. These guys know the weaknesses of each divisional team in intimate detail, and the fact that Brown has come out publicly about the Pickens trade means it’s something Cowboys fans should pay attention to.

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Pro Football Talk

Tyler Shough is the betting favorite to win the Saints’ starting quarterback job

Shough is the favorite at multiple sports books taking bets on the quarterback who will take the first snap of the season in Week One. Shough’s odds are at about -300 at various sports books. Spencer Rattler is considered Shough’s closest competition with odds around +200, and Jake Haener is an extreme long shot at +3000.

Derek Carr’s retirement left the Saints with the NFL’s most inexperienced quarterback room,, but the 25-year-old Shough probably enters the league more prepared to start than most rookies. He had a long college career with three years at Oregon, three years at Texas Tech and one year at Louisville, and when the Saints drafted him they knew Carr’s shoulder injury was serious enough that they might need Shough to play immediately.

Rattler was a 2024 fifth-round draft pick who started six games as a rookie last year when Carr was injured. Haener was a 2023 fourth-round pick who started one game with Carr out last year. The Saints went 0-7 in games started by Rattler and Haener.

Front Office Sports

Scott Hanson to Return to Peacock for 2026 Winter Olympics ‘Gold Zone’

Hanson, a free agent, is also likely to re-join NFL Network’s RedZone show.

Scott Hanson is signing a new NBCUniversal contract to host Peacock’s Gold Zone during the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games, Front Office Sports has learned.

Perfecting the whiparound highlight format he’s used on NFL RedZone for 16 years, Hanson took global viewers around France for the best Olympic action. Hanson got so excited narrating Paris highlights that he cut his hand while slamming it on the desk for emphasis.

Hanson has hosted NFL RedZone since its premiere in 2009. His last contract expired after the 2024 football season, making him a potential free agent target for the likes of NBC, ESPN, and Fox.

However, sources tell me his negotiations with NFLN have progressed in recent months. It’s likely Hanson will return to NFL RedZone hosting duties with a new contract under his belt, say sources. But he’ll still be given the green light to work on NBC’s Olympics coverage.

Front Office Sports

NFL Teams to Fans: Don’t Sell Your Season Tickets

Teams are warning season-ticket holders that selling the majority of their seats could impact their status, or have revoked tickets altogether.

Indianapolis alerted fans that if they resell the majority of their season tickets this year, their subscriptions will not be renewed. “The policy is designed to ensure that tickets are used by genuine fans who will be present at our games, and to prevent the exploitation of our ticketing system,” the team said in a letter to season-ticket holders last week.

Green Bay has already taken action, revoking in February memberships of multi-year offenders who sold all of their tickets and giving them instead to people on the waitlist.

Tampa Bay is launching a “ticket buyback” program in June for fans to exchange tickets for up to two games they don’t want this year for an advanced credit on next season’s seats.

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