Daily Slop – 27 May 25 – Survey results: Commanders name is now more popular with DC area residents

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

Washington Post

As Commanders won on the field, support for the team’s name soared

According to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, half of all D.C.-area adults now ‘like’ or ‘love’ the team’s name, up from 34 percent a year ago.

According to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, 61 percent of D.C.-area sports fans are fans of the Commanders, up from 45 percent of area sports fans a year ago. Among all D.C.-area residents, 53 percent say they are Commanders fans, while 45 percent do not root for the team. In 2023, 31 percent of D.C.-area residents said they were Commanders fans or that the Commanders were their favorite local team.

What’s more: Half of all D.C.-area adults now “like” or “love” the team’s name, which was changed in 2022 and became a hot-button issue for many fans who either clamored for a return to the franchise’s previous name, Redskins, or sought an alternative. In 2024, only 34 percent liked or loved the new name.

About a third of area residents do not like the name (36 percent), with 9 percent saying they “hate” it.

Harris made it clear in February, however, that the team will stick with Commanders.

“I think it’s now being embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff,” he said. “And so we’re going with that.”

Team merchandise sales through retail giant Fanatics from April 1, 2024, through the end of March were up 163 percent, according to a team spokesperson, and Daniels’s jersey ended the regular season as the site’s top-selling NFL jersey.

“It’s cool. It’s catchy,” said Kady Wilson, a D.C. resident and Commanders fan. “I like it better than the Redskins.”

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The Athletic (paywall)

Commanders ahead of OTAs: Potential awards to hand out during practice sessions

Connections abound in Washington for Welker, a four-time All-Pro and NFL assistant coach since 2017, when he joined the organization as a personnel analyst in April. The receiver-returner formed a dynamic combination at Texas Tech with his college quarterback, Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury. Welker served on three NFL staffs with general manager Adam Peters. Welker hooked up with the Commanders weeks after the trade for Samuel, a former pupil in San Francisco.

Welker’s 2019-2021 stint as the 49ers receivers coach coincided with Samuel’s first three NFL seasons and lone Pro Bowl nod.

Terry McLaurin’s extension

Wake me up if there’s no new agreement before training camp. Unless McLaurin’s age (30 in September) becomes an outsized factor — Tyreek Hill (31) is the only receiver among the 15 highest paid older than the 2024 second-team All-Pro — the eventual deal will likely fall somewhere between annual salaries for Tee Higgins ($28.75 million) and D.K. Metcalf ($33 million).

Brandon Coleman

Coleman could still land on the right side as Cosmi’s injury replacement, assuming the guard misses training camp and some portions of the regular season. Or, rather than a short-term shift, how about the 24-year-old battling Nick Allegretti for left guard duties?

Coleman will likely receive work at all four spots this spring and summer. The final decision affects several other linemen. The most interesting big-picture outcome is him lining up between Tunsil and center Tyler Biadasz, with Cosmi and Conerly eventually forming a right-side tag team.

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Riggo’s Rag

Carl Davis’ arrival turns up the heat on another Commanders veteran

The Commanders brought back a familiar face in the form of Carl Davis. He joined the club last season, playing three games and logging 23 percent of the team’s defensive snaps when active. The former third-round pick out of Iowa is a decent asset against the run. His athletic limitations are evident at 33 years old, but Washington saw enough in the player to warrant another look as preparations gather pace.

This could be nothing more than a camp body. However, it could also indicate that another recent arrival’s time with the Commanders is in danger of ending before it begins.

Washington signed Eddie Goldman in free agency. He’s got similar traits to Davis and should be fresher after missing a lot of football over the last five years. It would be a surprise if he didn’t make the squad, but this extra level of fierce competition must be successfully navigated.

It’s not costing the Commanders much to find out who’s worth taking through onto the squad. Goldman and Davis are both on the vet minimum, so disposing of either comes with almost no salary-cap ramifications. This is also what Peters wants — to raise competition for places and let the best man win.

Anyone not pulling their weight will be shown the door. The Commanders have Daron Payne, Johnny Newton, and free-agent signing Javon Kinlaw leading their defensive tackle room in 2025. But this group needs productive depth, so it might be the case of one or the other where Davis and Goldman are concerned.

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ESPN

100 days to the 2025 NFL season: Things to know, predictions

Here’s something I struggle to put into words (yes, always good to write that sentence just before publishing something). Jayden Daniels had a historically productive rookie quarterback season. The Commanders’ fan base and team brass should feel confident and inspired about the future of the position. However, I’m still as — if not more — impressed by how well Drake Maye played on that terrible Patriots offense last season.

Statistically, he didn’t hold a candle. But degree of difficulty? Maye was playing a completely different sport. I’ll put it this way and hope metropolitan D.C. doesn’t come for my head: Patriots fans should feel as confident and inspired about their future at quarterback as Commanders fans do right now.

The Commanders’ best pass rusher right now is Frankie Luvu, which is a little weird because he’s an off-ball linebacker. The actual defensive ends are Dorance Armstrong, Jacob Martin, Clelin Ferrell and Deatrich Wise Jr. I … don’t love that for a presumed Super Bowl hopeful!

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Podcasts & videos

“Come get me!” – Kain Medrano has UNFINISHED BUSINESS | RHWTR | Washington Commanders | NFL Draft

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S Jeremy Reaves on Accountability, NFL Dynamic Duos & Mascot Takes | Get Loud | Commanders

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NFC East links

Acme Packing Co

NFL commish Roger Goodell questions ‘integrity’ of current salary cap system

NFL owners probably do no like the Philadelphia Eagles’ financial strategy

The recent success of the Philadelphia Eagles, a team that spent $115 million more in cash than the Las Vegas Raiders in 2024 and is set to be a top-seven cash spender in the NFL again in 2025, almost certainly is an issue for some ownership groups. The Eagles’ mantra has been to extend players early on their rookie contracts, sometimes immediately after their third year in the league is over, and to consistently convert their salaries into signing bonuses to spread the cap payments over several years, by which point cap dollars will be more diluted. The timing of their contracts all escalate up to the 2029 season, which is when the NFL is expected to opt out of their current broadcast deals and sign a massive new set of contracts with streaming services.

In the world the Eagles are operating in, it’s a legitimate strategy to be hyper-aggressive at the start of new broadcast contracts and then slowly make cap payments on those teams as you reach the end of the deal. That only works if owners are willing to pay that kind of big cash immediately, though, which we’ve seen teams like the Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals balk at over the last decade.

The game is different when people are playing the game. The idea of the “hard cap” made sense up until Covid, but now teams are well aware of how salary conversions and void years can be used to manipulate the current cap system. If I were to guess as to what Goodell was referring to, the “integrity” question that league members are asking themselves is whether how the NFL treats the accounting of signing bonus and/or roster bonus dollars on the cap should be changed under the next collective bargaining agreement.

Funnily enough, the biggest benefactor of this might be the Eagles, the team that has taken advantage of this strategy more than anyone. A change to the cap system will mean that teams will no longer be able to do what Philadelphia executed, all the way to a Super Bowl.

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Blogging the Boys

The Cowboys need to upgrade the cornerback spot, but not with Jalen Ramsey

At 30 years old, Ramsey is approaching the twilight of his career, though he did make a triumphant return from a torn meniscus early in 2023, playing all 17 games this past year.

That said, there are reasons why Ramsey simply doesn’t make sense in Dallas.

For starters, as is usually the case with the Cowboys, the money is an issue. Ramsey signed an extension with the Dolphins just last year that gave him $24.23 million in guaranteed money. He’ll carry a cap hit of $16.67 million for this season, and it’ll balloon to just over $25 million in 2026; the contract tops out with a $36.17 million cap hit in the final year, which isn’t until 2028.

It should be noted that Ramsey’s contract has an out after this next season, with potential cap savings up to $18.29 million. However, given his age and injury history, does it really make sense to give up assets (likely draft capital) for a one-year rental? The Cowboys just did that with Pickens, but he’s six years younger and $13 million cheaper.

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Big Blue View

Is Week 1 a must-win game for the Giants?

Their history since their last Super Bowl says so

In the years since [the Giants] last Super Bowl especially, Game 1 has been a harbinger of the season, and usually not a good one.

[They’ve had] 12 consecutive seasons in which the Game 1 result perfectly predicted a winning or losing season, and 13 consecutive years in which it predicted making or missing the playoffs. That’s amazing. Last season, the Ravens, Broncos, Rams, Packers, and Commanders, all playoff teams, lost in Week 1, while the Saints, Patriots, Dolphins, Seahawks, Cowboys, and 49ers, all non-playoff teams, won. That unpredictability is supposed to be part of the NFL’s DNA (“On any given Sunday”). Not for the Giants, though.

So forget about the fact that the Giants have the toughest overall schedule in the league in the 2025 season.

All that really matters is the first game, apparently. Recent history says that if the Giants don’t win in Washington in Week 1, the season is doomed. And if you don’t believe that, the following week they play in Dallas, where they never win, so good luck with that.

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NFL league links

Articles

Pro Football Talk

30 second-round picks are unsigned after top two got fully guaranteed contracts

More than three-fourths of the players picked in the 2025 NFL draft have signed their rookie contracts. But only two of the 32 second-round picks have signed, likely because of disputes between teams and agents about fully guaranteed contracts.

On May 8, the Texans gave Jayden Higgins, the second pick of the second round of the 2025 NFL draft, the first fully guaranteed contract ever for a second-round pick. On May 9, the Browns reportedly gave the first pick of the second round, Carson Schwesinger, a fully guaranteed contract as well.

Since then, no second-round picks have signed. That’s likely because other teams don’t want to follow the Browns’ and Texans’ lead and give fully guaranteed contracts to second-round picks. And agents are asking those teams, If other second-round picks are getting fully guaranteed contracts, why should my player take anything less?

The 30 unsigned second-round picks represent most of the rookies who haven’t yet signed. In the other six rounds combined, only 26 draft picks have not yet signed their rookie contracts: Via Spotrac.com, there are 12 unsigned first-round picks, four unsigned third-round picks, nine unsigned fourth-round picks and one unsigned sixth-round pick. Every other draft pick has signed his rookie contract.

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NFL.com

2025 NFL preseason: Complete team-by-team opponents

Washington Commanders

• Week 1: at New England Patriots, Aug. 8 at 7:30 p.m. ET
• Week 2: vs. Cincinnati Bengals, Aug. 18 at 8 p.m. ET (ESPN)
• Week 3: vs. Baltimore Ravens, Aug. 23 at 12 p.m. ET

Commanders’ complete regular-season schedule

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Discussion topics

Over the Cap

Changes the NFL Could Consider with the Salary Cap and CBA

[T]he salary cap was extremely predictable from 2011 to 2019. During that time the salary cap rose by 56.4%. By comparison, from 2001 to 2009 the salary cap rose by 82.5%.

The salary cap and owners were certainly impacted by COVID a few years ago which saw most stadiums remain empty resulting in a major loss of revenues. That has made the salary cap growth harder to really project since it was only this year that the NFL and NFLPA began to exhaust various salary cap deferrals related to COVID. However, growth rates between 2020, where the initial cap was not impacted by COVID, and 2025 average out to about 8% per year. Since 2017 the growth is at about 67% which is worse for the owners than the prior CBA though not as bad as the earlier CBA’s. I think when we look at those numbers we can see why the owners are thinking a clawback in revenue accounting should happen.

Now going back to his comments about the salary cap itself, I think we have a number of things that are in play but the primary focus is probably what is considered the high usage of void years in contracts which are used to defer salary cap costs and turn the salary cap into less of a deterrent than perhaps it was meant to be.

While void years have existed forever, the current use level of those is absurdly high relative to the past. Here are the estimates for the use of void years since 2013

The initial use of void years during the 2011 CBA was pretty low. In part that was because teams actually tried different strategies with their contracts, dramatically lowering prorated money and trying to work on a cap equals cash basis before realizing that was too inflexible of a strategy. Still during the time the NFL geared up for the 2020 CBA negotiations, the void year use was still low. In 2018 not even half of the NFL had at least one contract with a void year. The number grew in 2019 as teams prepared for potential salary cap changes if the CBA was not extended in 2020, but it was still relatively low relative to the salary cap.

Things dramatically changed in 2021 due to Covid. 30 teams now had a contract with at least one void year and the average league cost was nearly 20% of the cap that year. In the last three year, long after the real impact of the Covid year we are around 25%.

While the NFL will often talk about competitive balance I am not sure that the void year really changes that (plenty of teams that overuse the void years stink) but owners are almost always thinking about costs and the use of the void years arguably drives contract prices up.

While the NFL salary cap has always been capable of being manipulated it did present a block at times for constantly re-signing all of your best players. In part it was because those players knew they could receive more on the open market than from their current team especially since many teams did not have the flexibility within their salary cap to make an offer. That was an era where you saw some higher end free agents actually switch teams and most positions across the leagues have more of a stable market structure. Now you get teams with owners who are willing to spend, dominate the salary scale and give other teams new salary marks they have to deal with.

For example the Bengals likely never would have had a market close to $29M a year to consider with Tee Higgins if the Eagles, Dolphins, and 49ers do not do the Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle, and Brandon Aiyuk contracts which were filled with voids on teams with significant deferred cap dollars.

In the early days of the 2011 CBA cash and cap spending were basically identical on average through 2017. We saw a slight uptick in 2018, 2019, and 2020 which was when void years were starting to increase. Owners got no relief during Covid and now that the cap has settled they were at nearly 108% spending last year. Spending is down in 2025 though it is too early to commit to a number since the summer is usually full of extensions. Still it should be significantly higher than the pre 2020 numbers which is what the NFL would prefer.

On a positional basis the league has clearly “lost” with some positions. Here is how much the top 10 salaries have changed between 2015 and 2025

A number of positions have really outpaced the cap and while it should, in theory, be harder to fit in many of those same players within the cap, teams are certainly not having that issue right now. In a league looking for steady state movement they would rather see these things tied more to the cap than they currently seem to be.

I think it is clear that as the NFL approaches their next CBA they have already identified areas that they may want to discuss tweaking to try to bring things back to how the NFL functioned and spent from 2011 to 2018. Some teams would certainly be strongly against these changes but many I think would support changing things if it means finding ways to reduce player compensation and bring costs down more in line to what the NFL owners felt was fair about a decade ago.

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All aTwitter

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