Daily Slop – 7 Jun 25 – Laremy Tunsil, Marshon Lattimore, Jaylin Lane, and Luke McCaffrey lead today’s headlines

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

ESPN analyst thinks the Commanders got a bargain with Laremy Tunsil

The Commanders prioritized (and rightfully so) the options around quarterback Jayden Daniels this offseason. Adam Peters started this bold strategy in the trenches, acquiring Tunsil in a blockbuster trade and spending the No. 29 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft on Josh Conerly Jr. Couple this with the wide receiver upgrades and continuity elsewhere, and it’s not hard to see why optimism is so high.

Bill Barnwell from ESPN agrees. The analyst lauded the trade and alleviated concerns about Tunsil’s high penalty numbers last season. Considering what other left tackles are getting paid around the league, he thought that Washington would have pulled off a major heist if the former first-round pick maintains his supreme performance levels.

“The Commanders, on the other hand, probably see a player who has another contract or even two ahead of him. The illegal formation penalties were all in one game, suggesting they might have been from an overzealous officiating crew. [Laremy] Tunsil has had issues with flags in the past, but 2024 was the first time he led the league in penalties or came close since 2019. And frankly, in an offseason when Dan Moore Jr. and Jaylon Moore signed for at least $15 million per season to play left tackle, Tunsil making $21 million per year in 2025 and 2026 might feel like a bargain.”

Bill Barnwell

The Texans had their reasons for parting ways with Tunsil. DeMeco Ryans felt that a younger, more vibrant protection in front of quarterback C.J. Stroud was desirable. Washington made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, and the rest is history.

Tunsil is a game-changing addition to the Commanders. He’s an elite pass-protector and a five-time Pro Bowler. Offensive tackles tend to play well into their 30s, so Peters will see this as a long-term investment in addition to someone who can improve their immediate aspirations.

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Commanders Wire

Washington Commanders’ CB Marshon Lattimore in a make-or-break season

Lattimore dominated the Saints’ secondary during his rookie campaign, recording five interceptions and a touchdown. The next four years were decent, he didn’t suffer a major drop-off until 2022. Since then, though, he’s been riddled with injury and had his attitude called into question. Given his absence from the Commanders this spring, it’s no wonder that NFL.com says this is a make-or-break season for the veteran corner.

This is about earning the final year of his contract. Lattimore moved to Washington as a coveted trade acquisition but struggled to find the same form with the Commanders, posting some truly dreadful Pro Football Focus grades in the postseason. There’s reason to believe a full year with Dan Quinn will fix things, and Lattimore is under pressure to do so this fall because the Commanders can cut ties with zero financial penalty in 2026. However, Lattimore has not joined the team for the offseason program, per defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. At 29 years old, Lattimore could still earn decent money on a new deal, but the main goal is to prove himself as a trusted corner for a team that aims to build on its surprise run to the NFC Championship Game last season. If he does that, he’ll be much easier to keep or at least consider for a contract restructure that’s friendlier to the team’s salary cap.

The Commanders have depth at corner this season, and if Lattimore doesn’t get it together, you can believe rookie Trey Amos is itching to take the starting job. And if not him, others are waiting in the wings, such as veteran Jonathan Jones and the returning Noah Igbinoghene. Rookie sensation Mike Sainristil proved he could play on the outside, too.

What the Commanders would love, though, is for Lattimore to come out swinging this fall. Show up and be the veteran leader that any team would need him to be at this point in his career. The way he presents himself in 2025 will dictate the direction of his career when the season is over.

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Commanders.com

Top quotes from Commanders’ assistant coaches

Wide receiver coach Bobby Engram on what gets him most excited about Jaylin Lane:

“Every aspect of being a better receiver, honestly. Jaylin’s a super smart guy. He’s a coach’s son, so he gets to exercise on different level. Love his work ethic, but my job is to help him prepare just to kind of tap into every ounce of potential that he has, and he’s willing to work and do that. So, I’m excited about that.”

Engram on Luke McCaffrey in his second season:

“Just continued growth as a receiver. Route running, run after the catch, contested catches, really everything. But I thought Luke did a great job of just staying the course last year. Got out, took a bit of a hot start and then things kind of cooled off a little bit. But he never wavered in his approach and his work ethic. So, I think naturally the biggest jump will be between year one and year two. And I really like the speed and the way he’s attacking football out there right now. He’s made some really tough catches.”

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Riggo’s Rag

Jaylin Lane projected to solve Commanders No. 3 wideout weakness in 2025

Alex Ballentine from The Bleacher Report added his name to the ever-growing list of analysts who believe Lane could thrive immediately. But instead of focusing on the player’s talent, he thought questions around others in Washington’s wideout room should see him come to the fore quicker than anticipated.

“The Commanders brought in Deebo Samuel Sr., but there’s still room for another receiver to emerge as part of the offense this summer. Noah Brown is a fairly niche receiver as the third option behind Terry McLaurin and Samuel. That’s where Jaylin Lane could wind up setting himself up for a successful rookie season. Lane is a burner who should at least capture the role of return man throughout preseason activities. But he also has the potential to become a part of the offense.”

Alex Ballentine

Opportunity knocks for Lane; there’s no getting away from that. Terry McLaurin and Deebo Samuel Sr. are the established starting duo who could be among the league’s best if everything comes together. After that, there’s nothing that should strike fear into the rookie as he goes in search of prominent targets.

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Hogs Haven

Looking Back at the “Best Punt Returner in the Draft”

Since the day he was picked in the 2025 NFL Draft, much has been made of how former Virginia Tech wide receiver Jaylin Lane was considered by Washington to be the best punt return prospect in the draft.

This was a case where at least one draft prognosticator, Mel Kiper, agreed:

Jaylin Lane is an intriguing Day 3 wideout. At 5-foot-10, he looks like a running back — and he took some snaps from the backfield in college. If Kliff Kingsbury can figure out how to get the ball in his hands, he has some juice after the catch. He’s also the best punt returner in this class.

While Lane put up good return numbers over 5 years in college (avg 10.9 yd/punt & 21.8 yd/kick), his numbers as a wide receiver tended to be much more muted, despite his elite athleticism metrics. Over his 5 college seasons, he broke 550 yards receiving only once – his sophomore year – and his final two seasons, both at Virginia Tech, he ended up under that total.

Much has been made of his, apparently, wretched QB play at VT, but I was curious to see if we could gain any insights about his potential projection into the NFL based on the performance of other top college punt returners taken in the draft over the past several years. What follows below is a brief investigation into how the top return men in the draft fared both in college, and in the pros.

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Podcasts & videos

Heart And Soul Of The Commanders | Sports Junkies

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NFC East links

Blogging the Boys

Micah Parsons may see less hybrid work under Matt Eberflus

While the 2024 season saw Parsons’ highest percentage of snaps on the line of scrimmage, Zimmer essentially built his scheme around Parsons having the discretion to line up wherever he wanted, with the star pass rusher saying this early in the season:

The fact that I got the creativity to control things where I know I got to be on my A-game always because I got these other guys depending on me now to like controlling that [alignment]. It kind of gets me more excited, it gets me more into it. It gets that drive, that hunger just a little bit more. Now I feel like I just can’t let this guy [Zimmer] down. He’s giving me the keys to the system.

Parsons still primarily played out on the edges, where he’s most comfortable and most effective, but the freedom to move around at will helped unlock a different animal for the Lion. It became common for Parsons to work as a linebacker mugging the A-gap on third downs, a popular front for Zimmer. He even took 17 charted snaps at defensive tackle, an alignment so unique that offensive linemen didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Zimmer is gone, though, and he’s replaced by Matt Eberflus. While there are some philosophical similarities between Eberflus and Zimmer – they both come from 4-3 backgrounds and call a lot of zone coverage – there are more differences than similarities.

Eberflus has generally been more rigid in his schemes. While Zimmer is hellbent on doing anything and everything to confuse the quarterback – sometimes at the cost of confusing his own players, too – Eberflus has always prioritized simplicity in scheme, preferring to let his players’ natural athleticism do the work for them.

That begs the question of how Eberflus will deploy Parsons. In looking at Eberflus’ defenses in the past, the most we’ve seen in terms of creativity with his pass rushers is having hybrid defensive ends who shift inside on passing downs. Hardly akin to the multiplicity that Parsons is capable of.

That said, Eberflus has never worked with a player like Parsons.

Earlier in the offseason, Eberflus was asked about his plans for the perennial All Pro. While he didn’t give anything specific – not atypical for coaches in February – Eberflus did say this:

“Micah is a premier pass rusher. We’re going to use him that way, certainly, and he’s one heck of an athlete that can do a lot of different things for us on defense. And when you have a guy like that, you want to be able to utilize his skill set.

As we’re around him more, we’ll see what that skill set is, and really take advantage of that. … He knows that we’ll just make him in the best light that he can be in terms of position, in terms of pass rush, and really utilizing what he does best, and that’s rushing the passer.”

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Big Blue View

Giants’ John Michael Schmitz considered a bottom-tier starting center

Two years into his NFL career, John Michael Schmitz of the New York Giants is considered a bottom-tier NFL starting center.

In a ranking of the starting centers for all 32 NFL teams, Pro Football Focus ranks the 2023 second-round pick No. 26.

PFF says:

Although the former second-round pick hasn’t quite lived up to expectations, he did show growth during his second season. After posting just a 41.4 PFF overall grade in his rookie season, Schmitz earned a 61.4 mark this past season.

Schmitz’s improvement from Year 1 to Year 2 bodes well for his potential. His pass-blocking grade rose from 26.9 in 2023 to 50.2 in 2024 — still not good enough, but an indicator of progress. His PFF run-blocking grade also increased by nearly 16 points, another good sign.

Are the Giants actually among the NFL’s best drafting franchises?

One of the biggest is health, and that’s been a consistent problem for the Giants. Many — most — of the Giants’ most important picks have dealt with persistent injuries. Andrew Thomas, Kadarius Toney (though that pick seemed to be a disaster right from the start), Azeez Ojulari, Evan Neal, and John Michael Schmitz have all missed real time with injuries.

Those injuries have impacted development and also forced the Giants to rely on depth players to an unhealthy (and often frustrating) degree.

When the injuries are combined with a lack of development and poor performance from players who were highly regarded in college, the picture starts to come into focus. Those factors also help to explain the feeling I, and others, have had that the Giants should be better than they’ve been. That they aren’t untalented so much as failing to live up to their potential.

[T]he elephant in the room: 2020 through 2025 was dominated by Daniel Jones.

And while we don’t need to relitigate that all again, but it’s also undeniably true that a quarterback sets the ceiling and floor for a team. Quarterback play touches on, and influences, every other aspect of the team.

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NFL league links

Articles

ESPN

What Aaron Rodgers means for the Steelers’ offense

At this point in his career, though, Rodgers comes with more thorns than petals.

As a four-time NFL MVP, 10-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion — in a win over Tomlin’s Steelers — Rodgers is an undeniable future Hall of Famer. But after two decades in the NFL and an Achilles rupture that cost him the 2023 season and a triumphant second act in New York, Rodgers enters Pittsburgh as a shadow of the quarterback who won back-to-back MVP awards in 2020 and 2021.

Since last earning the NFL’s highest individual honor, Rodgers’ performance has been in sharp decline. In 2022 and 2024, his past two seasons as a starter, he ranked 26th and 25th in QBR and 21st and 26th in yards per attempt.

Beyond being the ringmaster of New York’s off-field circus for the better part of two seasons, Rodgers’ on-field performance in his lone complete season as the starter declined from the gold standard set during his Green Bay career. Though Rodgers finished the season completing 63% of his attempts for 3,897 yards, 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, he posted a 48.0 QBR. His career low QBR as a complete-season starter was 41.3 in 2022. That year, his final season in Green Bay, he completed 64.6% of attempts for 3,695 yards, 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions as the Packers went 8-9.

Perhaps the lowest point in a reel of Rodgers’ Jets-era lowlights came in a 40-14 Week 17 loss to the Buffalo Bills, when he recorded a career-worst 1.2 QBR, threw two interceptions and was sacked four times to surpass Tom Brady as the most-sacked quarterback in NFL history. By the time Rodgers benched himself with the Jets trailing 40-0 at the start of the fourth quarter, the offense had gone 14 straight possessions without a touchdown. The unit finally scored a touchdown — Rodgers’ 500th career TD strike — in the second quarter of an eventual regular-season finale win against the Dolphins in Rodgers’ last game as Jet.

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UFL

Front Office Sports

UFL Ratings Dropped 20% in Second Season

After strong ratings in its debut last year, the UFL struggled to keep its momentum in its second regular season, which concluded Sunday.

The league’s second season, following a merger with the XFL and USFL saw viewership decline by 20% with an average of just 645,000 viewers per game across Fox and ESPN-affiliated networks. ESPN platforms averaged just 651,000, a network spokesperson told Front Office Sports.

The figure was down from an average of 812,000 viewers in 2024, with multiple games passing 1 million viewers.

A regular season game between the Houston Roughnecks and D.C. Defenders was the UFL’s most-watched contest with 1.35 million. The game followed the Indianapolis 500, which helped its viewership. Six games had more than a million views.

The UFL playoffs start this weekend, with the championship game scheduled for June 14.

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All aTwitter

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