Washington Commanders Hidden Gems: 3 Secret Superstars on the 2025 roster

The 2024 Commanders enjoyed one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NFL history. Can these three secret superstars get Washington into the Super Bowl next season?

The 2024 Washington Commanders were able to make NFL history in two important ways. Their ascent from a 4-13 disaster of a season in 2023 under Ron Rivera to the 12-5 mark and trip to the NFC Championship Game under Dan Quinn marked one of the most amazing one-year turnarounds in pro football annals, and second overall pick Jayden Daniels put together perhaps the best rookie quarterback season… well, ever.

Washington’s 55-23 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in that NFC title match was less of a disappointment, and more of a realization that this was now a great team that needed a few more pieces to be truly transcendent. There was no brain-drain in the offseason, as Quinn, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, and defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. are all back in the fold for 2025.

General manager Adam Peters was specially aggressive in the offseason trade market with deals that brought Laremy Tunsil and Deebo Samuel to an offensive line and receiver corps in need. The addition of first-round pick Josh Conerly Jr. will do a lot to further assist that front five, as the Oregon alum was one of the best overall offensive tackles in this draft class.

Ole Miss cornerback Trey Amos went in the second round, and that is a big deal for a team that would like to play more press coverage than it did in 2024, because the Commanders really didn’t have the guys to do that across the defense. Amos changes that right away.

Overall, the Commanders attacked the offseason exactly as they should have — as an organization that understands it’s just a few of the right people away from potential dominance.

In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, we look at three underrated players who could put Quinn’s team over the top in 2025 — one veteran, one free-agent signing, and one draft pick.

Underrated veteran: EDGE Dorance Armstrong

The Commanders did what they did last season without what you might call an alpha pass-rusher; the group of quarterback disruptors worked well together as a unit as opposed to one guy standing out all the time. Perhaps the most unexpected contributions came from Dorance Armstrong, a fourth-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in 2018 who played more of a rotational/backup role until Quinn became Dallas’ defensive coordinator in 2021. That’s when Armstrong started to thrive with six sacks and 36 total pressures in 2021, nine sacks and 43 total pressures in 2022, and nine sacks and 35 total pressures in 2023.

It was pretty easy for Quinn to convince Armstrong to follow him to the nation’s capital, which he did with a three-year, $33 million contract including $16.125 million guaranteed. Quinn gave Armstrong the most snaps he’d seen in a season so far (747 total, and 450 as a pass-rusher), and the veteran responded with his best year to date — 10 sacks, 51 total pressures, 29 solo tackles, 33 stops, and three forced fumbles.

Armstrong was particularly lethal in Washington’s 45-31 Divisional Round win over the Detroit Lions, with two sacks. Not only can he get things done from the edge, but two of his sacks and two of his 10 tackles for loss last season came from a three-tech tackle position, so Armstrong also has the multi-gap versatility that Quinn loves in his defensive linemen.

Overall, edge disruption is a bit light on this roster right now; perhaps it’s the hope that Armstrong improves once again with another breakout season.

Underrated free-agent signing: DL Javon Kinlaw

Javon Kinlaw certainly wasn’t underrated when he came out of South Carolina for the 2020 draft. The San Francisco 49ers selected him seventh overall, with the obvious hope that Kinlaw would define their defensive line for years.

For multiple reasons, that didn’t happen. Kinlaw had a pretty good rookie season, injuries scuttled his 2021 and 2022 campaigns (he played a total of 13 games in those two years), he had a decent bounce-back season in 2023 with four sacks, 35 total pressures, 25 solo tackles, and 22 stops), and after the 49ers declined to exercise his fifth-year option, Kinlaw signed a one-year, $7.25 million contract with $6.91 million guaranteed.

Clearly, this was a pivotal year in Kinlaw’s career, and he did his level best to prove that he still had something to offer. Maybe not at a seventh-overall level, but with five sacks, 30 total pressures, 27 solo tackles, 24 stops, four tackles for loss, and two forced fumbles, the Jets version of Kinlaw impressed the Commanders enough to give him a three-year, $45 million contract with $30 million guaranteed.

That’s a lot of lettuce for a guy who’s still defining his palette at this point, but Peters said after the signing that Kinlaw is still a raw ball of clay who has played at different weights — as low as 275 with the 49ers, and at 320 with the Jets last season — and that the Commanders see Kinlaw as a player who can both penetrate and anchor from multiple gaps at around that 320 mark.

“Kinlaw, his best football’s in front of him,” Peters said in late March. “He started early in his career, he got hurt, he had a really major injury that, to his credit, he fought back through and came back even better, which was really impressive. And how much he played two years ago in San Francisco and how much he played last year, those are like his first two [NFL seasons] in essence. And he’s got the hunger to get better and better. So, we like that as much as anything about him, is that his best football is in front of him.”

Peters was San Francisco’s Vice President of Player Personnel when Kinlaw was drafted, and the team’s Assistant General Manager before he got his current gig in 2024. So, he had more familiarity with Kinlaw than most, and I’m always inclined to defer to Dan Quinn when it comes to getting the best out of defensive linemen. I saw it up close when Quinn was running the Legion of Boom at its very best in Seattle in 2013 and 2014, and it’s been true ever since.

Kinlaw has the physical tools to explode in the right environment, and maybe this is finally his time.

Underrated draft pick: WR Jaylin Lane

Of course, the Commanders brought over another former 49er with whom Peters was quite familiar when they traded for Deebo Samuel on March 1. If healthy, Samuel should add a ton to Kliff Kingsbury’s offense both as a backfield weapon, and a perfect security blanket on short to intermediate passes.

But even the Samuel deal left the Commanders’ passing light in explosive targets (not really Samuel’s specialty) outside of Scary Terry McLaurin, especially after Dyami Brown’s departure to Jacksonville in free agency. Last season, McLaurin led the team with 12 catches of 20 or more air yards on 32 targets for 474 yards and five touchdowns. Brown ranked second with four deep catches on nine targets for 172 yards and a touchdown. After that, there wasn’t much — the rest of the receiver/tight end group caught seven deep passes on 31 targets for 231 yards and a touchdown. Woof.

You want more than that for a quarterback in Jayden Daniels who is already one of the NFL’s better deep throwers, especially on downfield fades and corner routes. The Commanders might have more in the person of Virginia Tech receiver Jaylin Lane, who they selected with the 128th overall pick in the fourth round of the 2025 draft.

Last season, Lane was responsible for 11 explosive catches overall, though he caught just two passes of 20 or more air yards on eight targets for 91 yards and two touchdowns. It really wasn’t on him — to say that Daniels is a thermonuclear upgrade over the quarterbacks the Hokies had last season is to undersell the word “thermonuclear.”

Not only can Lane burn safeties downfield on post and over routes with the 4.34 speed his showed off at the combine, but his ability to take sweep handoffs from the backfield and bust through tackles at 5-foot-10 and 191 pounds? You can bet that didn’t escape Kingsbury’s attention. Last season, the 2023 transfer from Middle Tennessee State caught 38 passes on 58 targets for 466 yards and two touchdowns; he also ran the ball 18 times for 116 yards and two scores.

Lane’s combine spider chart looked like science fiction outside of the size stuff. It shows up on tape, and the Commanders were all over it.

“He is a guy that we were really excited about organizationally across the board,” assistant general manager Lance Newmark said of Lane after the pick was made. “Coaching staff, personnel staff, just someone that we were really, really excited about. We had a vision for him, he was the highest player on our board when we got to that point, and it really was kind of a mixture of stress and hope that he was going to be there for us. He just does a lot of great things.

“He really helped himself in the spring with his testing numbers. Really was explosive, ran really fast, jumped really high and far. Just a guy that we’re really excited about. He has a unique instinct with the ball in his hands. He’s got a nose for the sticks on first downs. He’s got a unique return skillset. A guy that we have a vision for and we’re excited about and feel like he’s a great fit for what we’re doing here.”

So, clearly the Commanders are excited about that pick, and they should be. Lane was hidden in a rudimentary passing game, and the bust-out as both a slot and outside receiver could come sooner than later with a perfect combination of skill set and team need.