The 2026 Free Agency Thread

[method man]

Free agency in 2026 is especially important for Washington as a number of the core foundation pieces now appear as if they will not come from the 2024 draft class that Adam Peters assembled.

Team should have kept Montez Sweat and paid him and traded Daron Payne instead before signing him to a monster deal.

In retrospect, if we are talking about keeping one of those 4 guys, despite the injury and character issues, it would be CY. He is back to looking like the game wrecker he was as a rookie

 

[DWinzit]

In retrospect, if we are talking about keeping one of those 4 guys, despite the injury and character issues, it would be CY. He is back to looking like the game wrecker he was as a rookie

Sadly he was just an expensive wet mop the rest of the time he was in Washington

 

[DWinzit]

I'm not always on the same page as Finlay but he and HTTR nailed a young talented list for the team. If they were able to get two of them (different positions) on 3 or 4 year contracts it would be a success.

 

[Bulldog]

I think the key is to SPEND MONEY but spend it wisely. I would rather get 2-3 really good impact guys that cost a long-term deal to instead filling the roster completely with one and two year deals for someone else's backups or #6 corner.

The trouble in Year 1 was that the team simply didn't want to go with rookies and UDFAs with a couple of major free agents added but wanted 'value' veterans to fill the holes and then that lead to bringing them all back in Year 2.

So that now in Year 3 we are back to the drawing board again.

Hopefully the coaching staff after 5-12 can get back to DEVELOPING younger players and BUILDING a core of performers instead of trying to make a 3 minute bowl of popcorn in the microwave that is going to please the guests.

And let's get Tunsil's deal done early so we are not sitting here during OTAs wondering if he is going to sit out the season in a game of chicken.

 

[Ashburn Dave]

AP will be dead to me if he doesn't get Tunsil resigned.

 

[burgold]

The question is also how do you spend at a slight premium (25, 26 yo free agents are coveted,) that is impressive enough to get your targets away from the teams that drafted them, but not at such an unwieldy rate that it limits your overall roster construction?

 

[HailYeah]

The question is also how do you spend at a slight premium (25, 26 yo free agents are coveted,) that is impressive enough to get your targets away from the teams that drafted them, but not at such an unwieldy rate that it limits your overall roster construction?

My guess would be to limit the amount of players you go after, but that would be better if you were sitting on full draft picks or more. Or if you had a top DC (Flores) that players would want to play for. Spitballing here obviously.

 

[Conn]

We have to be the only fanbase in the league that is so comfortable counting our chickens before they hatch that we worry so deeply about future cap health and roster construction when we currently have very, very little talent. As if we’re in a position where we have so much talent to re-sign that we need to pinch pennies to afford our own homegrown studs. Lunacy. Let’s try cobbling together a competitive team with a few borderline elite players and some decent depth before we jump to worrying about how we’ll pay for it all. We have one of the least talented rosters across the entire league, no longer seem to perform as greater than the sum of our parts, and have yet to figure out if our new coordinators will assist in that going forward.

Just go sign some expensive mid-20’s starters please. God forbid we risk wasting $20-40M in guaranteed money across the roster while we try to sign a player who could be better than Kinlaw or Wise. The horror.

 

[KDawg]

We have to be the only fanbase in the league that is so comfortable counting our chickens before they hatch that we worry so deeply about future cap health and roster construction when we currently have very, very little talent. As if we’re in a position where we have so much talent to re-sign that we need to pinch pennies to afford our own homegrown studs. Lunacy. Let’s the cobble together a competitive team with a few borderline elite players and some decent depth before we jump to worrying about how we’ll pay for it all. We have one of the least talented rosters across the entire league, no longer seem to perform as greater than the sum of our parts, and have yet to figure out if our new coordinators will assist in that going forward.

Just go sign some expensive mid-20’s starters please. Got forbid we risk wasting $20-40M in guaranteed money across the roster while we try to sign a player who could be better than Kinlaw or Wise. The horror.

I’d spend every penny this year. Worry about the rest later. You have an OC with less experience than the QB coach and a rookie QB window. If we don’t load up on talent the next few seasons will be abysmal and Jayden will go elsewhere.

Start with getting Tunsil signed.

Yesterday.

 

[Conn]

I’d spend every penny this year. Worry about the rest later. You have an OC with less experience than the QB coach and a rookie QB window. If we don’t load up on talent the next few seasons will be abysmal and Jayden will go elsewhere.

Start with getting Tunsil signed.

Yesterday.

Yes. And AP needs to continually improve and draft better (and by that I mean, like any good GM he needs to absolutely nail about 1/3-1/2 of his drafts overall or the misses stack up too much), of course. But emptying the purse and adding some real talent to the roster will take a little pressure off of the draft as well. The way we approach FA right now, if AP doesn’t have a vintage John Schneider type studly draft we’re screwed.

 

[DWinzit]

I don't recall seeing this before. A week ago Von Millerr said he loved playing for DQ and wants to be a Commander next year.

A couple days ago he said this and I can't blame him:

Von Miller wants to sign with the Broncos as a role player behind Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper next year.“I would love to be a Denver Bronco next season”(Via Free Range with Von Miller)

 

[Commander Wraith]

By my accounting, we have something like 20 spots on the 53 available. After cutting Lattimore and factoring in rookie contracts/in-season spending money, I’d think we have maybe 90-ish mil to spend? Breaking our needs into tiers, I have something like:

Must: Add a good DE and Z WR. Re-sign Tunsil (and Way?)

Must: Add (at minimum) a decent starting TE, G and corner

Must: Add serviceable corner and DE depth (probably a DT too, unless we land a good one somehow)

Would be great: A good ILB, DT, S, RB

Hopefully: Decent depth at outside receiver (I like what Burks provided, but I don’t see him as a quality replacement if Terry or our Z get hurt)

I figure that 4 of our draft picks make the team, maybe as many as 6.

I’d be curious about people’s thoughts on the above and what price points we might be looking at for these adds.

 

[Bulldog]

Good for Miller, I hope he goes to Denver. He’s 36 and not really a player for Washington given our rebuild lead time.

I get exercised when I read reviews of Jordan Magee’s improvement over second half of 2025 and the difference his speed makes but then read his status as a starter for 2026 is dependent upon whether Bobby Wagner resigns at 35.

We need to get out of the George Allen climate of collecting name veterans and move forward with our younger players.

Time for us to start looking at future and getting younger and faster on that side of the ball.

Magee is now heading into Year 3. Time to show he can fly on his own.

 

[DWinzit]

Good for Miller, I hope he goes to Denver. He’s 36 and not really a player for Washington given our rebuild lead time.

I get exercised when I read reviews of Jordan Magee’s improvement over second half of 2025 and the difference his speed makes but then read his status as a starter for 2026 is dependent upon whether Bobby Wagner resigns at 35.

We need to get out of the George Allen climate of collecting name veterans and move forward with our younger players.

Time for us to start looking at future and getting younger and faster on that side of the ball.

Magee is now heading into Year 3. Time to show he can fly on his own.

Agreed, it is time to begin the youth movement. It is going to be hard it's freaking time.

I worry about Magee and we better have upgrades all around him.

 

[Bulldog]

Other teams get rookies and younger draft picks on the field early.

Washington for a rebuilding club seems to move very slowly to get players into the mix.

We are sitting here as the oldest team as if the Commanders were a dynasty team that aged and we owe veterans consideration.

Miller, Wagner, Ertz all made their careers elsewhere. They have no real history here.

Time to move on.

 

[Commander Wraith]

Other teams get rookies and younger draft picks on the field early.

Washington for a rebuilding club seems to move very slowly to get players into the mix.

We are sitting here as the oldest team as if the Commanders were a dynasty team that aged and we owe veterans consideration.

Miller, Wagner, Ertz all made their careers elsewhere. They have no real history here.

Time to move on.

Totally agree that we need to get younger and not be tied to older vets like the ones you mentioned.

Don’t agree about getting draftees on the field though. 11 of our 14 draft picks saw a fair bit of playing time as rookies. Hampton didn’t, but he got cut, so no surprise there. Which just leaves Medrano and Magee, the latter getting a decent amount of PT in year 2 (and he was injured a fair bit of year 1), the former stuck behind Luvu, Wagner and Magee (who all stayed healthy). Medrano did play ST of course.

Even our 2 2024 UDFAs that made the 53 (Owens and Yankoff) have gotten snaps. Heck, so did Ricky Barber in the last game. Kaho (UDFA) played teams.

Now, if you want to argue that the young guys should have gotten more snaps once we were out of the playoff mix, that’s a different story. Especially that last game. (To be fair, a lot of young guys did play, and a fair few were unavailable)

 

[Bulldog]

It also seemed as if Washington could have done better in looking at other teams practice squads to bring in younger guys to audition for 2026 instead of playing Tay Martin and Chris Moore, who are clearly replacement level players and not in the team's plans in any event.

We treaded water with a lot of older players, even the backups were old. Somehow we ended up with 39 year old Josh Johnson starting games.

Yes, Peters FINALLY started to see what needed to happen and we went out and signed Treylon Burks and Drake Jackson when they were released by their former teams BUT those types of opportunistic moves to churn players until we found some younger guys who could play for us should have been happening from the beginning.

Mariota is a solid backup and there's no criticism there but the team should have brought in a true developmental youngster to be the #3 or place on the practice squad who had a legitimate NFL arm in the offseason.

It was embarrassing to see the team have Hartman for 2 years and when Mariota gets hurt there isn't even the thought that he could go into an NFL game and execute basic plays.

Most teams #3 quarterbacks are not blue chip prospects but it's really kind of unique to see a team SKIP OVER a younger player they have had on the roster to sign a 39 year old player that is sitting on his couch watching NFL games on TV and has only won ONE game in his NFL career.

It's not like we brought Brady out of retirement.

 

[DWinzit]

It also seemed as if Washington could have done better in looking at other teams practice squads to bring in younger guys to audition for 2026 instead of playing Tay Martin and Chris Moore, who are clearly replacement level players and not in the team's plans in any event.

We treaded water with a lot of older players, even the backups were old. Somehow we ended up with 39 year old Josh Johnson starting games.

Yes, Peters FINALLY started to see what needed to happen and we went out and signed Treylon Burks and Drake Jackson when they were released by their former teams BUT those types of opportunistic moves to churn players until we found some younger guys who could play for us should have been happening from the beginning.

Mariota is a solid backup and there's no criticism there but the team should have brought in a true developmental youngster to be the #3 or place on the practice squad who had a legitimate NFL arm in the offseason.

It was embarrassing to see the team have Hartman for 2 years and when Mariota gets hurt there isn't even the thought that he could go into an NFL game and execute basic plays.

Most teams #3 quarterbacks are not blue chip prospects but it's really kind of unique to see a team SKIP OVER a younger player they have had on the roster to sign a 39 year old player that is sitting on his couch watching NFL games on TV and has only won ONE game in his NFL career.

It's not like we brought Brady out of retirement.

I feel very very strongly the same way as you about every item you presented. I posted complaints on every one of them. I believe they were all missteps by coaching and front office that were in the now type decisions not forward thinking. At the end of the day, they didn't reflect well on DQ and AP. Fortunately the seem to recognize at least some of their shortcomings.

 

[Bulldog]

Yep, at 3-8 I think Peters realized the entire picture of how large the dumpster fire was and how unretrievable it was.

Even getting some of the 30 year old players that were hurt back on the field was not going to change the team's fortunes.

The only solution was to start looking forward to the NEXT PHASE and that was deconstructing the roster and getting younger and faster and hungrier.

Beyond Burks and Jackson we saw Ricky Barber come up from the PS and get some reps at DT.

It took 5-12 to burst the bubble.

 

[Higskin]

Hmmmm