All the Washington Commanders did in their first year under Dan Quinn was rip off their best regular season since 1991 before winning not one but two playoff games—their first such victories since 2005. Of course, No. 2 overall pick and offensive rookie of the year Jayden Daniels deserves a ton of credit for the team's success as well, notably engineering one memorable late-game moment after another basically all season long.

While the Cinderella story sadly struck midnight in Philadelphia, it's impossible to call last season anything other than a raging success for this squad.

And the best news for the future: Daniels operated as anyone's idea of an elite QB (illustrated below).

 

Today we'll get into potential offseason injuries to monitor as well as team needs ahead of the 2025 offseason while also recapping some of the good and bad of 2024.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

What Are The Biggest Needs of the Washington Commanders Ahead Of 2025?

Team Need No. 1: Pass Catchers

Obviously Terry McLaurin is a baller, shot caller, but after that? C'mon. With all due respect to Olamide Zaccheaus' productive late-season run and the growing legend of playoff Dyami Brown, this passing game needs a talent infusion in the WR room. After all, Eagles WR Jahan Dotson is the only WR that this organization has selected with a top-50 pick since Josh Doctson in 2016!

There also could be a need at TE depending on what the team does with Ertz in free agency, although it would make sense if Sinnott steps into that starting role. Ultimately, this passing game was just average when it came to creating separation; using one of their three top-80 picks on the position and some of that handy dandy cap room on one of the various big-name free agent veterans like Stefon Diggs, Keenan Allen, or Amari Cooper among others would make a lot of sense.

Team Need No. 2: Secondary

Former Saints CB Marshon Lattimore and solid rookie CB Mike Sainristil are a solid start here, but that still leaves two starters in CB Noah Igbinoghene and S Jeremy Chinn as unrestricted free agents. You could also simply make a pretty easy argument that a group ranked 27th in PFF pass coverage grade and 28th in EPA allowed per target to WRs and TEs needed some upgrades anyway (Lattimore in particular had himself a rough NFC Championship game).

Whether it's splurging on likely expensive free agent corners like D.J. Reed and Carlton Davis, or trying again in the first round after whiffing badly on Emmanuel Forbes in 2023, more help is needed in the back end (pause) if Quinn wants to again blitz at the league's sixth-highest rate.

Team Need No. 3: Linebacker

EDGE would be another fine answer here, but addressing LB seems particularly paramount considering the team has the league's third-fewest 2025 dollars devoted to the position and struggled mightily to stop the run all season long.

Entering Week 18 the Commanders were allowing:

  • League-high 2.02 yards before contact per carry allowed
  • 8th highest explosive run play rate (10%)
  • 3rd most yards per rush attempt (4.8)
  • 7th worst successful play rate allowed (57.3%)

Only the Panthers, Bears, and Patriots allowed more rushing yards to opposing RBs in 2024, which is especially surprising considering those teams were all top-seven groups in most time spent trailing this season, while the Commanders were actually the sixth-best team at avoiding that scenario.

Now, Quinn's defenses in Dallas also typically sacrificed some down-to-down success in stopping the run for creating negative plays, but again, extra resources are needed in the front seven to complement the team's duo of people-eating defensive tackles.

WASHINGTON COMMANDERS 2024 RECAP

  • Record: 12-5 (7.5 preseason win total)
  • Points per game: 28.5 (5th)
  • EPA per dropback: +0.211 (4th)
  • EPA per rush: +0.027 (4th)
  • Points per game allowed: 23 (18th)
  • Leading passer: Jayden Daniels (3,568 yards, 25 TD, 9 INT)
  • Leading rusher: Jayden Daniels (148 carries, 891 yards, 6 TD)
  • Leading receiver: Terry McLaurin (82 receptions, 1,096 yards, 13 TD)

Biggest surprise: QB Jayden Daniels

Notice how Daniels led the Commanders in both passing and rushing yards this season? He's only the ninth signal-caller to do that since 2000. The list is littered with baller dual-threat talents … and Ryan Fitzpatrick (with all due respect to Mr. Fitzpatrick).

Obviously, expectations for any No. 2 overall pick are destined to be high, but my goodness, did anyone REALLY expect Daniels to make a legitimate MVP argument in his first professional season? Whether it was dropping downfield dimes to Terry McLaurin, or running away from defenders of all shapes and sizes: Pre-draft comparisons to Lamar Jackson quickly became far from anything to scoff at.

Overall, Daniels joins Cam Newton, Justin Herbert, and Robert Griffin as the only rookie QBs to average north of 20 fantasy points per game (min. 8 starts). Not too shabby–here's to hoping no sort of sophomore slump reers its ugly head in 2025.

Biggest disappointment: TE Ben Sinnott and WR Luke McCaffrey

Unfortunately, the Commanders' other rookies on offense struggled to provide much of an impact. The former TE caught just five passes all season long and couldn't beat out John Bates on the depth chart, let alone starter Zach Ertz. The latter WR posted an underwhelming 18-168-0 receiving line and only really started to make an impact as a kick returner late in the year.

It's just one season, but this also wasn't exactly an offense loaded with the sort of elite WRs and TEs that would warrant redshirt years of sorts. Truthers can hold onto both Sinnott and McCaffrey's prospect profiles and RAS scores as reasons to believe brighter days could be ahead; just realize neither did anything to warrant the benefit of the doubt when it comes to profiling who the offense's key contributors will be in 2025 and beyond.

Key Injuries

The Commanders had to deal with mid-season issues to Daniels and the RBs, but Noah Brown (kidney, IR) was really the only key offensive contributor who was actually lost for the season at any point. Fingers crossed Brown's recovery goes well—fun fact: Brown's 158 yards drawn on defensive pass interference penalties trailed only Justin Jefferson last season—but there really isn't too much to worry about here overall when it comes to prognosing 2025 availability.