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The Commanders added a lot on defense in free agency. Is the offense still a step behind?
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00:00But I do want to start with the draft. We are six days out. The Commanders have the seventh pick,
00:04and now we're armed with some new data points after Adam Peters spoke yesterday about the draft.
00:10But you know what I wanted to get into, Danny, is something that I think is going under-talked about
00:13a little bit right now.
00:14I was actually listening on my way out here to Beamich and Finley today, and JP was talking about the
00:20need to add another defensive playmaker.
00:22And that's irrefutable. You can't name a good football player at any position that I wouldn't be happy to add
00:28to Washington.
00:28That's what happens when you're picking in the top ten and you lost double-digit games. You need good football
00:32players.
00:33But I actually think there is a case to be made. They need more on offense than on defense.
00:37And that right now, Danny, when you look at this roster, their defense might be ahead of their offense going
00:42into this part of the offseason.
00:43You can make that case, yeah.
00:44Crazy to say, but after you went and spent money on Adafi Owe, getting Dorrance Armstrong back from injury, spending
00:50money on Kayla Von Chason and Charles Menehu,
00:53and the depth that they now have from a pass-rushing standpoint, they got work to do in the secondary.
00:57They brought in a new starting linebacker. They're confident that this scheme will be perfect for Frankie Lou Vu.
01:02I actually think it's a pretty easy case to make that, on paper, they have more defensively than offensive.
01:10It's just Jaden Daniels and pray for rain, you know, hope Terry McLaurin is Terry again.
01:14They need offensive help.
01:15The number of, again, Jaden Daniels obviously has such an outsized influence, the high tide there that raises all the
01:22boats.
01:22But if you just go in terms of number of quality starters, there are more on defense than on offense,
01:28which is a great sign because that was not true as of four months ago.
01:33It is now because they've added to that unit.
01:35They've added on all three levels, rightly so.
01:37It needed to happen.
01:38They had salary cap space.
01:39They finally addressed the need.
01:40They went hard.
01:41They had just one year, $6 million for cast-off Craig, but, you know, difference makers in their 20s multiple
01:47years.
01:47But looking at it now, again, if this was a different draft, as we've talked about a million times,
01:52if there was a more surefire, bona fide cadre of receivers that were universally top 10, not just this year,
01:59but any year, you wouldn't hesitate.
02:02You'd go, of course, wide receiver at seven, done and done.
02:04Now, I like Tate more than most, but understanding that I may be on an island here in terms of
02:09that.
02:09So that's what's so murky about this draft and kind of their positioning.
02:13Here's how I'll crystallize my point.
02:16Free agency.
02:17They spent rampantly.
02:18They did exactly what I and so many people wanted them to do.
02:20They were aggressive.
02:21They were urgent.
02:22They got after it.
02:23And they added a lot of pieces.
02:24Yep.
02:26How many legit key contributors did they bring in on both sides of the ball?
02:31Well, I believe the count is two on offense and seven on defense.
02:37I agree with that.
02:38On offense, they went and got Chigakonkwo at tight end, who's going to be a baller,
02:42and Rashad White I'm going to put on the list as well, third down back, pass catcher,
02:46heavily involved in the backfield, regardless of what happens in the draft.
02:50I am not putting on that list depth guys who are on the roster.
02:55Now, could Deami Brown, who balled out in the playoffs and seems to have a great rapport with Jaden Daniels.
02:59We saw a lot of social media footage from Daniels of those guys working out in the last couple of
03:03weeks.
03:04Could Deami Brown have a big season?
03:05Yeah, that's possible.
03:06I'm not counting on it.
03:08I think Van Jefferson, Deami Brown, Jerome Ford, those are just depth assets, right?
03:13Those are guys you bring in, kind of filling out the roster, and whatever you get is a bonus.
03:17But it's a count quo and Rashad White in terms of what I'll call legit contributors.
03:21That's two so far this offseason.
03:24On defense, Adafi Owe, Caleb Onchason, Tim Settle, Charles Amenahu, that's just the defensive line.
03:31All those guys will play an important role.
03:33Then at the linebacking, second level, Leo Chennault.
03:36Then in the secondary, Nick Cross and Amik Robertson.
03:39And I think Akilo Witherspoon actually could be in this conversation as well, but I'm going to leave him out.
03:43So I'll say seven on defense, two on offense.
03:46Remind me why the bigger need right now is in offense.
03:50If you want to look at this optimistically, you could do that.
03:54We'll get to that argument in a second.
03:55But the more grounded, rational, and if you want to say pessimistic view of this offense would be,
04:04you've got Jaden Daniels, hopefully working miracles at quarterback like he did in 2024.
04:09Terry McLaurin's got to be a legit wideout one.
04:12And then what?
04:13It's a seventh round running back in year two in Bill?
04:16And you're trying to get by with Traylon Burks and the development of McCaffrey and Lane and maybe De'Ami
04:21Brown.
04:22There's just not enough here.
04:23You need McLaurin to play at a Pro Bowl level.
04:26You need Chigakonkwo to have a career year.
04:28And you need Bill to make a gigantic leap just to be an above average offense in terms of skill
04:34group around Jaden Daniels.
04:36The people that disagree, disagree is the wrong word, the people that aren't worried about that, right,
04:42are the people that I've been bucking against, which is the healthy Jaden Daniels I saw in 2024.
04:49He made Noah Brown cast off Craig.
04:51He made Lamedy Zaccheaus.
04:52He made Jamison Crowder.
04:54He made name that jag into plenty good enough on offense.
04:57If he's healthy, none of this matters.
04:59It's all irrelevant.
05:00And I said it then.
05:01It wasn't fair to ask.
05:02He did it, by the way.
05:03Rookie of the year, one of the great seasons we've ever seen.
05:05Last year, it caught up.
05:06The injuries happened.
05:07But even within some of those games, when there's nothing, you know, when the defense doesn't respect a whole huge
05:12part of the field,
05:13a.k.a. over the top, it's hard for anybody to maneuver.
05:16They have needed to make things easier on this quarterback for three years.
05:20I think they failed in that regard.
05:22I really do believe that.
05:23They got bailed out year one because Ertz was healthier than he's ever been.
05:26Not ever been.
05:26Has been in a decade or half a decade.
05:29And Jaden Daniels was so transcendent and people weren't used to Cliff Kingsbury that it just sort of all worked.
05:35Everything fell into place.
05:36That was lightning in a bottle.
05:37That's not something you count on.
05:39I have been banging this drum for three years that they need to make it easy on the quarterback.
05:44Once you make your 80 million bucks, more is expected.
05:47Right?
05:47Once you get the Mahomes, the Josh Allen, the Godfather deal, you're here.
05:51You're never wearing another uniform until we're tired of your act.
05:54You know, Brett Favre and Rodgers 20 years in.
05:57Then, at that time, you're expected to pick up the Olamide Zaccheauses.
06:00You're expected to pick up fourth-round Freddie and turn him into a star.
06:04Right now, this minute, a guy on a rookie deal, it shouldn't be, let's see what hurdles we can put
06:08in front of you.
06:09See how much you can fix.
06:10Wrong attitude, wrong answer.
06:12They needed to do more.
06:13I think they recognize that.
06:14It's why they went after Pierce.
06:15It's why they went after Dobbs.
06:17I think they see it, too, now.
06:18Well, I will stop short of saying they're better on defense than on offense right now because of Daniels.
06:24But you're a Daniels injury, and last year there were a litany of them, away from being better on defense
06:29than on offense.
06:30You are still, even with Daniels, him not playing at the 24 level.
06:36You know, rather some of those 25 performances, you think the road game against the Cowboys, the Packers game, the
06:42Vikings game.
06:43The Seattle game, whichever ones you want to choose, where he struggled a bit, and the offense sputtered.
06:48Plenty of the reason why.
06:49David Blau's now running the show, and Cliff Kingsbury's not going to be calling plays on the offense.
06:54But if he's not playing at the level he did in 24, then, yeah, maybe the defense is better than
07:00the offense.
07:00I'm not going to write that in pen.
07:02I'm not willing to go public with that take.
07:05I think that's hot and probably unnecessary.
07:07What I'm saying is they have done so much more on defense that if, like we said all offseason, what
07:14they did in free agency is informative to what they're going to do in the draft.
07:19If their free agency plan informs what we should be expecting at 7, then we're not talking enough about the
07:26fact that this is not really about getting another defensive playmaker.
07:30Now, maybe they go that route if the right guy falls.
07:32If Sonny Stiles is there, I don't care how badly you need a weapon.
07:35I think he's a 12-year inside linebacker, put his name in the stadium on the facade for the Ring
07:41of Honor, right?
07:42You could say the same possibly about A. Caleb Downs or either of the two edges.
07:47But I think that's different than what they're thinking, what their best-case scenario is, what their paradigm is going
07:53into the draft.
07:54And I actually want to play this clip from Adam Peters.
07:56This is from his press conference out in Ashburn yesterday with reporters on free agency and how it informs and
08:03impacts their approach at pick number seven.
08:06Yeah, you know, I think we talked about this a little bit in Arizona, too, that, you know, really felt
08:14good about it.
08:14That's what we wanted to do coming out of free agency was make it so we're not having to pick
08:19for need or having to pick, you know, reach for a certain position or player.
08:22And so I think we all feel in the building.
08:26We feel really good about where we're at.
08:28Certainly, we have a lot of time to add.
08:30You know, we have the draft and a ton of time after that to add before we start playing games.
08:35But we feel really good about being able to pick the best player available.
08:40That's the beauty of how much they got done.
08:42And I would say this is one of the Peter's staples that I have enjoyed the most about his time
08:48here is even when they didn't swing bigger in free agency,
08:51like they did on Adafi Owe or the 12 mil for Chase on it, you know, years in the past,
08:56the last couple of off seasons where they've just signed a bunch of dudes to one-year deals on the
09:00cheap.
09:00This was always a win for them.
09:03They do so much that now you get to read and react in the draft and you don't have to
09:09make any moves out of desperation.
09:11That's – we kept saying that.
09:13That, to me, is what this free agency period was all about, right, was taking the pressure away, where now
09:19at seven it's, oh, my God, if we don't get the edge, what are we going to do?
09:24No, we got a solution.
09:25It's not as good.
09:26It'd be great if David Bailey fell.
09:27But now we don't have to have it, right?
09:29Now the list of have-to-haves is a lot shorter.
09:33It's – I think a receiver is have-to-have.
09:36I think other than that, I don't think there are any haves at this point.
09:39I know people will point to corner.
09:40I think you could use a corner.
09:43I think they'll be able to find another guy in that tier, in that, you know, very mediocre, you know,
09:47third-round tier.
09:48If they find another corner, another starting caliber player at some point before week one, you think they're okay there?
09:54I think it's just below okay.
09:56And I think that's the – I think that may be the design for this year.
10:01I think corner's about the same as receiver, and neither are satisfactory for me.
10:07Like, if you believe in Amik Robertson, I don't know what they think of him, to be honest.
10:11But if they believe that he's a stalwart nickel, and now Sandra still, who a year ago at this time
10:16they're telling us they didn't want to play outside, they wanted him to play inside.
10:19Now, because he's got two years of solid play on the outside, I guess we're changing our minds about that.
10:24Amos, by the way, who I love, played about a half season and got hurt.
10:27Like, you've got a guy who got hurt.
10:29You've got a guy who's playing out of the position that they've always said is his best position.
10:33And now you've got a guy coming over from Detroit who was one of the lowest-graded corners in the
10:36league last year.
10:37There's a path to that working out, and I like it better than whatever they had 365 days ago.
10:42But I am not ready to start the season at corner.
10:44No, I don't think it's good enough, but to me it's not as dire as receiver.
10:48I think receiver is –
10:49Is that just because of how important the position is to you?
10:52Partly.
10:53Or is it because of the talent?
10:54Both.
10:54I mean, I think receiver's a burning building, whereas we should probably fix this leak.
10:59I mean, you know what I mean?
11:00I think one is an emergency.
11:01The other could use some work.
11:03Again, I want another corner.
11:04I'm not telling you I don't.
11:05I think it's probably the second biggest need, but I don't think it's anywhere near as –
11:09and again, I think their free agency kind of tells you they feel the same way.
11:12I mean, again, they were willing to go to that huge number for Alec Pierce who's never caught 50 balls.
11:17Right.
11:17Like they were going to spend that money.
11:19It kind of tells you it gives away the game a little bit.
11:21Now, again, I would have gone shopping in a higher-tier corner.
11:23I 100% would have.
11:24For whatever reason, they don't really feel compelled to do that.
11:26They should have done it last year.
11:27They didn't because they had –
11:29Now it's, I think, the scheme.
11:30I think it's a Deron Day-Jones thing.
11:31And that's where I was going, and I think that's the correlation.
11:33So if they're telling – I'm not going to say it's devalued.
11:36That's not – it's not there.
11:37It's not, I don't know, box linebacker or strong safety.
11:41But if it's devalued somewhat or less important somewhat, I might take my cues from them on that.
11:47Again, we haven't seen it yet, but that's the thinking, right, if he's coming from that floor.
11:51We have seen them start a year at receiver with basically a group like what they have now.
11:55In fact, I would say this is a much higher upside group than the 24 receiver room.
11:59In terms of Luke McCaffrey was coming on, the diving catch against the Chargers, the touchdown against the Bears.
12:04At the time of his injury, he was starting to flash a little more.
12:07Jalen Lane was a fourth-round pick, so you've got two guys you've drafted in the early to mid-rounds
12:11that are looking for opportunities.
12:13And then they did bring Deami Brown back.
12:15And I know he's on your list of guys that aren't your favorite, but when he was last year in
12:21January of the 24 postseason, he was excellent during that stretch run.
12:25And he has a really, really good relationship with Jaden Daniels, which I don't think is nothing.
12:30Van Jefferson is kind of a replacement level veteran who can round out your roster, but he's bounced around.
12:35You could ask him to run routes at multiple receiver positions.
12:38They've still got some youth on their practice squad.
12:40Ja'Cory Brooks and Jacoby Jones who caught a ball on a big first down late in the game last
12:45year for them.
12:46So, I don't know.
12:47I guess for me, I think you're right that I would rather add a stud at receiver than corner.
12:55But you can dictate how much the receiver problem hurts you.
12:59You cannot dictate how much the corner problem hurts you.
13:03This is always my argument against, you know, scheme being more important offense or defense.
13:07We debate that, right?
13:08If they want to, they could run plenty of stuff where they have one wide receiver out there because they've
13:13got Ben Sinnott as the H-back,
13:15and they've got Chica Conco at tight end, and they've got John Bates out there and 13 personnel.
13:18Or they could run two receiver sets where they like somebody on the opposite side of McLaurin.
13:24If a team wants to just spread you out and ask you to put four and five corners on the
13:27field, oh, boy.
13:30What does that look like?
13:30You don't get to dictate that.
13:32That's up to them to decide.
13:33If I'm playing Washington right now, that's what I'm doing.
13:35I'm going empty.
13:36I'm spreading them out, and I'm asking Darius Rush.
13:40I'm not sure who that person is, to be honest with you, to defend.
13:43Cody the Blowfish, I think.
13:45Is that who it is?
13:45Darius Rucker.
13:46I'm asking, you know, Carlin Vigors to defend my third or fourth wide receiver who I think can get open
13:53and be twitchy.
13:55But it's going to be fascinating because I do think there's a real chance that Mansoor Delaney's staring him in
13:59the face at number seven.
14:01And now do you want to stick to the idea that schematically corner's not that important to you, or do
14:05you want to get a guy who runs a 4-3 who's a baller?
14:08They compare to Quinone Mitchell.
14:09Yeah.
14:09I mean, again, this all reflects around what you think of these three receivers.
14:15I'm honing it on Tate, but it doesn't have to be Tate.
14:17I mean, you know, Jordan Tyson, a guy that was injured a bunch.
14:20If you guaranteed me Tyson stayed healthy, I would take Tyson at seven.
14:24I love Jordan Tyson's game.
14:25Of course you do.
14:26It's the fact that it is – what did Jeremy Green say to me today, the draft nerd?
14:31He's hilarious.
14:32He said, Jordan Tyson has this problem where his bones are made out of popsicle sticks.
14:37And he said every morning when he wakes up, one of them breaks, and then it heals that night, and
14:40then it happens again the next day.
14:42I mean, he just gets hurt all the time.
14:43Yeah.
14:44But in a world where you're looking into your Danny Ruye crystal ball, and you tell me he's going to
14:48miss five games in the next eight years or something,
14:51seventh pick, not thinking twice about it, slam the door.
14:53I think he's the most talented, right?
14:54But, again, if these guys were better thought of or didn't have all the wrinkles – nobody's perfect.
14:59There's no perfect prospect.
15:00But there's enough wrinkles with Tate.
15:02There's enough wrinkles with Tyson.
15:03There's enough knocks with Amon Ross St. Lemmon, Makai Lemmon, that you don't feel great about them at seven.
15:10At the end of the day, no one's going to remember if you went seven or ten or 12 or
15:1413 if you get a really good player.
15:15And I think that's kind of my point as to why I'm far more open to taking a receiver at
15:18seven maybe than a lot of folks.
15:21But I think that's so reflective here where the best players in this class are, A, not in – now,
15:29Delane's a different animal –
15:30but not in the position scarcity, positional value sort of normal chart.
15:35You've got to deal with that, act accordingly.
15:37And it may feel early for Delane, but I'm wondering why.
15:40Why does that feel early for him after he ran a 4-3 and covers guys in multiple schemes over
15:44multiple years?
15:45When he stepped up and challenged, is it even better in the SEC?
15:47I don't think seven's early for Delane at all.
15:50It's only based on mocks, but it's not, really.
15:52It's a matter of is Washington willing to do it when the scheme that you are running dictates you don't
16:01have to.
16:01Like, do you like him that much?
16:03I think he's a fringe stick and pick guy, and he's going to be there probably, which makes it compelling.
16:09But let's open up the phones on this for the first time today.
16:12We've got a lot of things on the table.
16:13We're going to talk Ovi.
16:14I want to get an audio vault in, a movie's going to be made that you and I love that's
16:19coming back out.
16:20There's all kinds of content.
16:21There's a lot on the docket.
16:23But quick opportunity to hit the draft with you guys next at 800-636-1067,
16:29as we're six days out from round one next Thursday night from Pittsburgh.
16:34Do the Commanders need a stud on offense more or a really good player on defense?
16:40Grant and Danny on the fence.
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