2025 Washington Commanders Roster

[Hail Raiser]

There's a lot more to playing WR than just catching the football.

 

[Cloudy Jurgensen]

Not sure I understand the keeping 3 QB’s thing. Is Mariotta maybe more injured than we’re aware?

Russ Grimm played quarterback in high school. I often hoped he would get his shot as an emergency QB in a Skins’ game.

 

[Conn]

I wouldn’t read too much into it. “All” the linebackers is a total misnomer.

1) Miller - exclusively a pass rusher.
2) Bellore - might as well be listed in the specialist column not LB.
3) Medrano - more hybrid safety/LB then pure LB.
4) Kaho made it because quite frankly he earned it. But still could be vulnerable to moves (WR, C…)

Really the true linebacker room is 4ish with Wagner, Luvu, MaGee and Kaho. Wagner and Luvu will likely still see super high snap counts. I think the excitement and curiosity for MaGee has more to do with can be stay healthy and earn some snaps from Wagner this year so we know what we have because we aren’t expecting Bobby back next year. If MaGee can’t stay healthy and show he belongs then it’s a big gap/unknown next offseason.

I’m not disagreeing with your overall point here but Quinn earlier this offseason expressed a specific desire to be able to play Magee next to Wagner so that they could move Luvu around more to attack the QB. So it was a definite desire, whether it plays out that way remains to be seen, and that was before we brought in a pass rush specialist in Miller

 

[Simeon]

Russ Grimm played quarterback in high school. I often hoped he would get his shot as an emergency QB in a Skins’ game.

Ditto for Brian Mitchell and he actually did it. Monday night game in Nov 1990, both starting QBs went down.

Backing up the backups: Emergency NFL QBs who have been called into action

Emergency NFL quarterbacks Tom Matte, Tony Dungy and Brian Mitchell recall their experiences being pressed into action and give advice for Julian Edelman, the Patriots emergency backup.

www.si.com

Brian Mitchell, Washington Redskins​

When Joe Gibbs told Brian Mitchell “You’re in!” midway through a Monday night game against Philadelphia in 1990, the rookie didn’t know at what position. Known mainly as a return specialist, Mitchell had watched from the sidelines as two quarterbacks and two punt returners, among others, went out with injuries. “He said quarterback and I was dumbfounded,” Mitchell recalled in an interview with NJ.com. His first drive under center ended in seven points, but Mitchell went 3-for-5 for 40 yards passing in a 28–14 defeat.

I remember that game, the game was closer than the score and the announcers kept on talking about how you could never count the Redskins out no matter what happens. They just kept running down Philly’s throat and wouldn’t go down. Gibbs created quite the culture.

As a result I think next season the NFL created the emergency QB rule.

 

[Faithful Fan]

Russ Grimm played quarterback in high school. I often hoped he would get his shot as an emergency QB in a Skins’ game.

I didn’t know that about Russ Grimm, but
I know we’ve had a few players who played quarterback in high school or college. I recall Brian Mitchell and Jordan Reed. Luke McCaffery was a QB too. If one of them is playing QB then we’re in trouble, but I always enjoy the gadget plays you can run with a receiver or back who can throw.

 

[Faithful Fan]

I know it feels crazy to me how low morale kind of is around here.
Lots of talk of giants being a struggle week one, lucky playoff run last year, hope to make the playoffs.

Not that there isn't truth to the sentiments but we've spent so many years buried in analytics it feels like we've forgotten how to be fans, lol.

Snyder era is over, our roster is better than last year and last year we made the nfc championship game.

We're going into year two with a superstar quarterback and a phenomenal coaching staff by all accounts we should be better than last year and last year we won 12 games and almost went the distance.

Enthusiasm should be much higher for this team and ironically in the real world it is but in our little world we're terrified from years of abuse.

I guess we're gonna find out in a week and a half where we really stand but until then im assuming the national media is right and we're one of the top teams until proven otherwise by something other than scrubs playing in the preseason.

I think Terry’s holdout and being outscored by 70 points in three preseason games is part of the malaise. And any longtime fan of this team is conditioned to expect disappointment.

But you’re right the Snyder era is over, and the future looks bright. We finally have a good owner, GM, coach, and a franchise quarterback. And our roster is improving. So I do like our long term prospects. 2024 was our best season in decades, and there is reason to believe that success is sustainable now.

But I would be lying if I said I was optimistic about the season. I fully expect a slow start, Jayden hasn’t thrown a pass in the preseason, Terry just started practicing yesterday, and I’ll reiterate we were outscored by 70 points in three preseason games. And the Giants do look drastically improved, and we barely beat them last year. Not to mention the Eagles who trounced us in games their QB played and remain the better team until proven otherwise. And I haven’t even mentioned the run defense, the sophmore slump, the strength of schedule, DQ’s tendency to blow NFC Championships and 28-3 leads, all the lucky breaks last year, etc. So I have some cause for my pessimism.

Don’t get me wrong I expect to win more than we lose this year, but I will be surprised if we get off to a good start, and I really don’t expect us to match last season’s success.

But who knows? They proved my wrong last year, maybe they can do it again.

 

[Faithful Fan]

Luke is still young, but I think him being on the active roster is more of an indictment of every other WR we had in camp. We've had a void at WR the whole summer with Brown being out, and none of the other guys could step up. McCaffrey has had a quiet camp.

He showed up in the last preseason game, 5 catches, a nifty run after the catch for a first down, a special teams tackle, and some good blocks.

As others have said, he is a project, but given the draft pick we invested, his pedigree, and his potential upside, I’m not at all surprised he is one of 5 WRs on the roster. It is still too early to say about him, but I have hope he will be good.

 

[Chris]

PSA- Opening post in this thread has been updated with the current 53 for easy reference.

 

[SmiffySkins]

He showed up in the last preseason game, 5 catches, a nifty run after the catch for a first down, a special teams tackle, and some good blocks.

As others have said, he is a project, but given the draft pick we invested, his pedigree, and his potential upside, I’m not at all surprised he is one of 5 WRs on the roster. It is still too early to say about him, but I have hope he will be good.

I think because he is a project that they will grab a 6th receiver this week. They will need cover for Brown. Of course adding a 6th receiver will also limit the snaps for Luke. I don’t think the NFL does player development very well.

 

[burgold]

It seems to me that our candidates for emergency QB would be Tress Way (I think he's 6/6 as a passer) and Luke McCaffrey who played QB at the collegic level before trying to transition into a receiver.

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

Absolutely no surprise on that final roster for me. Just happy Dieter is not on the roster. Going into camp I was pretty sure one of Gallop or Osborn would make the team, they obviously did not perform and we knew this throughout camp.

 

[heisenberg]

Commanders have the NFL's oldest 53-man roster, Packers have the youngest

The Commanders are the first NFL team in more than a decade to have an average age of over 28 years old.

www.nbcsports.com

We have by far the oldest roster in the nfl.

Not surprising considering the age of some of the stop gap veterans we've brought in but we are going to be code red soon if we dont draft spectacularly.

 

[heisenberg]

I think Terry’s holdout and being outscored by 70 points in three preseason games is part of the malaise. And any longtime fan of this team is conditioned to expect disappointment.

But you’re right the Snyder era is over, and the future looks bright. We finally have a good owner, GM, coach, and a franchise quarterback. And our roster is improving. So I do like our long term prospects. 2024 was our best season in decades, and there is reason to believe that success is sustainable now.

But I would be lying if I said I was optimistic about the season. I fully expect a slow start, Jayden hasn’t thrown a pass in the preseason, Terry just started practicing yesterday, and I’ll reiterate we were outscored by 70 points in three preseason games. And the Giants do look drastically improved, and we barely beat them last year. Not to mention the Eagles who trounced us in games their QB played and remain the better team until proven otherwise. And I haven’t even mentioned the run defense, the sophmore slump, the strength of schedule, DQ’s tendency to blow NFC Championships and 28-3 leads, all the lucky breaks last year, etc. So I have some cause for my pessimism.

Don’t get me wrong I expect to win more than we lose this year, but I will be surprised if we get off to a good start, and I really don’t expect us to match last season’s success.

But who knows? They proved my wrong last year, maybe they can do it again.

I get it i really do but pre season means nothing, really good teams look terrible in the preseason all the time and come out on fire.
As we all know, joe gibbs was famous for his teams looking bad in the preseason, belichick had a 76-108 preseason record with the patriots and went to 10 superbowls.

There are many ways to skin a cat and one of those ways in the preseason is to completely rest your starters and just evaluate the bottom half of your roster, we have an exceptionally old roster so protecting their health was paramount and it showed.

For the last 25ish years we went into every season with false hope and optimism, we were the team who fought hard in the preseason because we wanted to make a statement, we were the team who had a "punchers" chance in game one when we were outmatched.

I know its hard to grasp but we aren't the underdogs anymore, this year thats the giants.

the one small glimpse of our real team this year was the first quarter of the bengals game and they looked fine.
The running game was so effective it looked easy and they didn't even have to throw the ball once and the defense was scrappy and that was with burrow playing 3 or 4 series.

I know this feeling we're all having, if we go in with high expectations and the giants kick our ass we'll be throwing stuff at the tv and frustrated all week but if we go in medium and they kick our ass the fall wont hurt as much.

We aren't the same team that beat the giants twice last year, that team was finding its footing in all aspects, all new coaches, rookie quarterback, massive almost unprecedented roster turnover.

This is year two and we brought nearly the entire gang back with some significant improvements. Tunsil, amos, miller, connerly, just to name a few.

We're now an improved version of the team that put a shellacking on the heavily favored 15-2 home team in the divisional playoffs last year.

All that to say, yes a sophmore slump is possible, they happen all the time and nobody knows for sure when, where, or why they're gonna happen but we have no real evidence yet that we are in for one because preseason doesn't matter.

 

[burgold]

If we want to daydream a bit, that first quarter against the Bengals wasn't even our first team. Tunsil, Coleman, and Cosmi all sat out. That was basically our second line gashing the Bengals.

 

[Chris]

McClaurin contract details are in the ubiquitous All Things Terry thread. 😎

 

[DWinzit]

I was surprised to see comments on Twitter/X about Hartman possibly going to the practice squad.

With Josh Johnson on the 53-man team, we don’t need Hartman on the practice squad, do we?

It gives a good opportunity to bring in a different young QB with NFL abilities and let Hartman walk.

 

[Hail Raiser]

JD and Hartman are best friends and study together off the field constantly. He's basically another coach or personal assistant for Jayden. He's really important to us.

JJ is out back up because MM is actually hurt, but they're not sure if he's IR hurt and if JD goes down in the first few weeks, MM would not be remotely up to speed.

 

[clskinsfan]

Russ Grimm played quarterback in high school. I often hoped he would get his shot as an emergency QB in a Skins’ game.

Well he could not have done worse than Theismann as an emergency punter. Only negative yard punt I have ever seen in my life is when Theismann had to step in and punt one time when our punter got hurt.

 

[DWinzit]

JD and Hartman are best friends and study together off the field constantly. He's basically another coach or personal assistant for Jayden. He's really important to us.

JJ is out back up because MM is actually hurt, but they're not sure if he's IR hurt and if JD goes down in the first few weeks, MM would not be remotely up to speed.

So Hartman is untouchable because he is Daniels boy toy

 

[Bulldog]

Hartman is not an NFL quarterback. Josh Johnson at 39 is no longer an NFL quarterback.

Washington needs to hunt for and find a veteran or younger player that can come in and learn the system and be there for the 5% worst case scenario.

Since you aren't really expecting a #3 to carry you to a playoff berth if both quarterbacks ahead of him are out for the season in that scenario, the best situation is to have a younger guy that can show some promise and we can develop further and perhaps trade somewhere down the line or a guy that can take over for Mariota who will be 32 during the season in future years.

As far as the preseason goes, this is all BS.

Both New England and Cincinnati are coming off disappointing seasons in which one coach was fired and another was close to being let go.

These teams felt it was vital to play the preseason hard and risk injuring some starters by playing them more than the first series, etc.

THAT is not where Washington is. This coaching staff knows the starters for the most part from 2024 and the systems are carryovers as well.

There was no need to go all out and try to win these games.

In fact we didn't even play our rookies like Conerly or Merritt that much.

I think the coaches and Peters did for Sam Hartman what was fair - he has worked hard for 2 years to put himself in position to be a candidate for a regular spot on the team and he simply failed to show that he was up to that challenge.

If Washington wanted to win these games we could have had Daniels play more or if Mariota was 100% we could have thrown him out there for extended action and won.

But that's of no value to anyone.

What was the preseason record in 2024?

0-3.