On paper, the 2024 Washington Commanders are a much-improved team from the one that saw them win just four games in 2023 and earn the second overall pick in this year’s NFL draft. The game, however, is not played on paper, and if new head coach Dan Quinn wants to avoid a top 10 draft pick in 2024, he’ll need to get the best out of this roster.
Below I have broken down the positional groups from 2023 and 2024 and assigned my grade to them. I tried to compare the guys who started the year in 2023 with who the projected starters will be in 2024.
The benefit of hindsight is on my side for 2023, however, I did my best to ignore the stats and focus purely on the talent in the positional group (which I’m not going to lie – wasn’t easy). I then used the traditional grading scale to come up with a cumulative average for both offense and defense (I did not include special teams in this exercise). I averaged the grades for offense and defense together to get a total grade for each year.
Offense
Quarterback:
2023 – Sam Howell/Jacoby Brissett
Grade: C
2024 – Jayden Daniels/Marcus Mariota
Grade: B-
Running Back:
2023 – Brian Robinson/Antonio Gibson
Grade: B
2024 – Brian Robinson/Austin Ekeler
Grade: B+
Wide Receiver:
2023 – Terry McLaurin/Jahan Dotson/Curtis Samuel
Grade: B+
2024 – Terry McLaurin/Jahan Dotson/Luke McCaffrey
Grade: B
Tight End:
2023 – Logan Thomas/John Bates
Grade: C-
2024 – Zach Ertz/Ben Sinnott
Grade: B
Interior O-Line:
2023 – Saahdiq Charles/Nick Gates/Sam Cosmi
Grade: C-
2024 – Nick Allegretti/Tyler Biadasz/Sam Cosmi
Grade: B
Offensive Tackle:
2023 – Charles Leno/Andrew Wylie (Swing: Lucas)
Grade: C-
2024 – Cornelius Lucas/Andrew Wylie (Swing: Scott)
Grade: D
*Offense Grade:
2023 – 2.05
2024 – 2.66
Defense
Interior Defensive Line:
2023 – Jon Allen/Daron Payne/Phil Mathis
Grade: A-
2024 – Jon Allen/Daron Payne/Jer’Zhan Newton
Grade: A
EDGE:
2023 – Montez Sweat/Chase Young
Grade: B+
2024 – Dorance Armstrong/Clelin Ferrell
Grade: C
Linebacker:
2023 – Jamin Davis/Cody Barton
Grade: C
2024 – Bobby Wagner/Frankie Luvu
Grade: A-
Cornerback:
2023 – Kendall Fuller/Emmanuel Forbes/Benjamin St-Juste
Grade: B-
2024 – Benjamin St-Juste/Michael Davis/Emmanuel Forbes
Grade: C
Slot Corner:
2023 – Quan Martin
Grade: C
2024 – Mike Sainristil
Grade: B-
Safety:
2023 – Darrick Forrest/Kam Curl
Grade: B-
2024 – Quan Martin/Jeremy Chinn
Grade: B
*Defense Grade:
2023 – 2.72
2024 – 2.89
Commanders Final Grade:
2023 – 2.38
2024 – 2.78
I think it’s pretty easy to say that the talent we have on the current team is much greater than the one that started 2023 under Ron Rivera. There are still plenty of holes on this current roster, but filling some key positions in the offseason can really give fans hope for the future.