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Washington Commanders key additions for 2025: Defense

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Which new face on defense can help the Commanders get beyond the NFC Championship game this season?

Washington Commanders Key Players will be a short series — likely three articles — in which John Portis and Bill-in-Bangkok will, together, explore newcomers to Washington’s roster that need to punch above their weight for the Commanders to progress to the next level of competition.

Since last year’s roster went to the NFC Championship, in essence we are discussing which offseason additions could propel the franchise to the Super Bowl in 2025.

The qualifications are simple: any Commander that was not with the franchise at the start of last season is eligible for consideration. This includes players acquired from in-season trades, free agent additions, and the draft. We even plan to address the coaching staff in this series (though the coaching candidates may not actually meet the ‘newcomers’ qualification).

Of course, Dan Quinn needs a high level of performance from all his players to reach the ultimate goal, but in these articles, we are trying to distill things down to a single player each (one for John & one for Bill) that we expect to have the most impact in 2025.

Obviously, this is opinion — not an exact measurement or evaluation. Rather, the intent is to “prime the pump” a little bit and encourage discussion about which player(s) might make the biggest impact in the coming season.

To make this a little different, and hopefully more fun, newcomer John Portis and long-time veteran Bill-in-Bangkok have agreed to provide their thoughts on one candidate in each article.

We encourage you to not only comment on the players we have chosen to highlight, but to add your own thoughts or candidates for consideration. To keep things tidy, we ask you to focus your comments on the group under discussion for the day — and today, that means defense.

While we are starting with the defensive side of the ball this morning, we’ll feature a different aspect of the team in each article of the series, which will run every Wednesday until the start of training camp.

Per Pro Football Reference, the Washington Commanders ranked 18th in Team Defense at the end of the 2024 regular season. This represented a significant improvement over the team’s 32nd ranking in 2023. The upward movement was accomplished by improvement in the passing defense. Ranked 32nd in 2023, the secondary made a substantial leap to 3rd last season. Meanwhile, the rushing defense regressed to 30th from an already dismal 27th ranking in 2023. In a division that boasts the team with the second-best rushing attack in the league, that’s not going to cut it. From a John Keim article published in May:

There’s a lot of things that we want to get better at,” coach Dan Quinn said. “Run defense was certainly part of that.”

The Commanders’ defense was able to get to the quarterback last season, ranking 11th with 43 sacks in 2024, but a good portion of this production relied on various players in the Leo/Elephant position.

They struggled to replicate their success in 4-man fronts, which ranked 26th with 22 sacks. In response, the team let 2024 team sack leader Dante Fowler return to the Cowboys and added players of size that can rush from multiple positions.

The defense also struggled to create turnovers. Washington created 17 turnovers last season, which ranked season 20th in the NFL, and only three teams intercepted fewer passes than the Commanders. Joe Whitt addressed the issue in his OTAS presser:

Last season:

· We didn’t produce the ball like I wanted to — the reason being we dropped 16 of them, literally just balls that touched our hands that we felt should have been caught. If we catch half of those, that puts us in a different ring.

· We didn’t play the run well enough, and I thought that we would have.

Third, [we didn’t] close games out… the way that I was anticipating.

And so, when we get into the offseason, we look at it in three different things:

1. Was it schematics?

2. Was it the player? or

3. Sometimes, did we just get beat?

Quinn and Joe Whitt will address the schematics and make changes, but they have already added multiple players to the defense: Marshon Lattimore (who joined the Commanders at the trade deadline in 2024), Deatrich Wise, Javon Kinlaw, Jonathan Jones, Will Harris, Trey Amos, Jacob Martin, and Eddie Goldman, among others.

Which new player will be the key to unlocking Washington’s defense in 2025?

The John Portis Take:

If the goal is to improve against the run and upgrade the 4-man rush, the answer is clear. It all starts up front. While I expect veterans Deatrich Wise and Eddie Goldman to provide a steady presence, to truly make the necessary improvement, they will need Javon Kinlaw, who was signed in free agency in March, to step up.

Kinlaw has all the tools for the job. He is a 6’5″, 319-pound player with a powerful build and plus measurables. 35″ arms provide leverage on interior lineman and match up well versus tackles. Along with these physical attributes, he possesses a quick first step and heavy hands. On certain plays, he can win using nothing but his size and power:

Javon is also versatile, with the ability to line up at both defensive tackle and end. With the Jets in 2024, per PFF, Kinlaw played 316 snaps at defensive tackle and 299 snaps at end. Joe Whitt talked about Kinlaw in a press conference last month, and indicated that the coaches are planning on using him all over the defensive line. This includes at the six-technique, which allows Kinlaw to drop into coverage off simulated pressures, slant inside or outside, and operate twists/stunts that confuse the protection.

It seems simple enough. Replace Jonathan Allen with a younger, gifted Kinlaw alongside a rejuvenated Daron Payne, developing Jer’Zhan Newton and a few big veterans, and then watch the run defense transform into a top-10 unit. The problem arises when you look at Javon’s play over the first 5 years of his career.

His record is marred by injuries and inconsistency. When he’s on the field, his play in pass rush has looked the part with PFF grades of 71.9 in ‘23 and 68.2 in 2024. Run support is a different story. Javon’s run grade was a downright awful 35.6 in 2023, with an improvement to a not-so-good 50.8 in 2024. A large part of the issue is undisciplined play and failure to cover assignments.

For the Commanders defense to be successful, Kinlaw will need to be the player that the front office and the coaching staff believe he can be, which will require him to produce more than he has previously in his NFL career, spent with the Niners and Jets.

It’s important to note, however, that Adam Peters and defensive line coach Daryl Tapp know Kinlaw well and believe in the coaching staff’s ability to focus his aggression and scheme his play to the next level. Their faith is not completely blind as Kinlaw is coming off his best season yet, setting career highs in tackles (40), sacks (4.5) and forced fumbles (2).

It’s a gamble that may or may not pay off, but, in essence, the coaching staff is betting on themselves. If they can turn Kinlaw into the type of player San Francisco believed they selected 14th overall in the 2020 draft, Washington’s 2025 defense could match the 2024 Commanders offense. A Commanders team with top production from both sides of the ball would compete at a very high level.

The Bill-in-Bangkok Take:

Like John, I’m focusing on a player who needs to realize potential rather than repeat proven performance, but for a different reason — my guy is a rookie.

In my view, the key to Washington’s defensive success in 2025 will be the play of Trey Amos.

Last season’s biggest weakness from a statistical standpoint seemed to be the inability to stop the run, so I can understand why many would focus on the front-seven as the key to a 2025 defensive improvement, but it’s clear that improving the run defense in 2025 is going to be a large-group affair that involves scheming from coaches and multiple changes to the defensive line personnel.

When it comes to the single most important defensive player, I think we need to look at the secondary, where there are a few new faces. At safety, we have veteran Will Harris and UDFA Robert McDaniel, while at CB, the team added veterans Jonathan Jones, Bobby Price, Kevon Seymour and Allen George as well as 2nd-round draft pick Trey Amos, and a pair of undrafted college free agents.

The only question in my mind was whether to focus on Will Harris, Jonathan Jones or Trey Amos, but it took only a few moments of reflection to realize that this is a no-brainer. Will Harris is a 6-year veteran who has played in 94 NFL games; Jonathan Jones is a 9-year veteran of 132 NFL games. Both are solid veteran additions with great character and work ethic that fit the mold of Washington’s free agent signings under Peters and Quinn. Both will contribute to an improvement in the team’s 2025 defense, but rookie Trey Amos is much more of a wildcard with unlimited upside.

It’s simply painful to remember that the Commanders opened up the 2024 season with Emmanuel Forbes and Benjamin St-Juste as the starting outside corners, with Michael Davis as a key backup — while relying on rookie Mike Sainristil as the nickel back.

How different things will be in 2025! Both Forbes and St-Juste were released during the ‘24 season. Michael Davis is gone. The Commanders will have four players on the roster who were NFL starting cornerbacks last season — Marshon Lattimore, Jonathan Jones, Mikey Sainristil and Noah Igbinoghene. That’s very solid depth at a key position group — and a huge change from a season ago.

When you add the promising rookie, Trey Amos, to this group, its potential is dramatically enhanced. Amos may or may not start for the Commanders in 2025 — he will have to prove a lot in training camp to open the season as a starting corner — but the early reports from OTAs and minicamp were all very encouraging. If Amos is able to exceed expectations for a late-second-round draft pick and achieve the potential that so many observers see in him, that would be a crucial x-factor in upgrading Washington’s pass defense.

There are a lot of reasons to think that Amos can do exactly that.

Most analysts predict Trey Amos will be a great cornerback due to his ideal size, length, athleticism, and strong performance against SEC competition. His physical attributes, combined with good ball skills and instincts, make him a promising element in Washington’s expected defensive improvement. He excels in both man and zone coverage and has shown the ability to disrupt routes and make plays on the ball.

Trey Amos | Cornerback | Full 2024 Ole Miss Highlights | 2025 NFL Draft

At 6’1” and with long arms, Amos has the physical build desired for a cornerback in a Dan Quinn defense. He uses that size well; Amos is not afraid to be physical at the line of scrimmage and is willing to come up and make tackles in run support.

He has also shown good speed (4.43 40-yard dash) and explosiveness (10’6” broad jump), which are crucial for succeeding in the NFL.

Finally, Trey Amos has what every truly great player needs — Football IQ. He has a good understanding of route concepts and can anticipate plays, allowing him to be in the right position to make a play.

Film Study: IT’S A GREAT PICK: What Trey Amos will bring to the Washington Commanders

For a defense that came up short in terms of forcing turnovers in 2024, Amos’ good hands and ability to track the ball make him a constant threat to intercept passes or break up throws.

For all these reasons, when I think about which new defensive player is the most critical to a Commanders appearance in Super Bowl LX, my answer is rookie CB Trey Amos.

Rookie DB Trey Amos Does it ALL | Raising Hail With the Rookies | Washington Commanders | NFL