Updated Commanders depth chart: taking stock after one day of the vet free agent negotiating window

We’ve got 56 players on the roster now

The Commanders signed TE Zach Ertz to a 1-year deal last week, making him the first signing of the Adam Peters era of Washington Football.

On Monday, the negotiating window for veteran free agency (i.e., the ‘legal tampering period’) opened. Negotiations can happen and agreements can be reached, but contracts cannot be signed or finalized before 4pm EDT on Wednesday, March 13. It’s important to remember a couple of things:

1. Reported deals may not happen. We will all remember when JD McKissic had agreed, during the negotiating window, to leave Washington to join the Buffalo Bills. However, after speaking to Washington coaches, McKissic reconsidered and snubbed the Bills, returning to Washington on the same contract terms he had agreed to with Buffalo.
2. Salaries and cap hits reported during the negotiating window may not be accurate; in fact, they are often misleading. When they are wrong, 99.44% of the time the initial numbers reported are much higher than the actual cap hits of the signed contracts. The reason for this is that teams cannot announce deals, so these early contract amounts are leaked to reporters by players’ agents, who provide maximum amounts that can be earned if the player achieves every possible bonus. Here at Hogs Haven, we try to revisit every free agent contract as its details become known over the coming days or weeks so that we understand the real and practical impacts of these signings on the salary cap.

Today, I will only look at the players added to the roster; I won’t discuss announced salary cap impact at all until we’ve seen the detailed structures posted on Over the Cap, the source I use for all cap-related details.

The team is currently projected to have 28 offensive players, 25 defensive players, and 3 specialists (K, P, LS) that are under contract now or will be early in the new league year, which begins on Wednesday at 4pm.

UPDATED DEPTH CHART

The numbers that appear beside some players’ names are 2024 cap hits per Over the Cap.

Please note that assigned positions and color coding are my own personal opinions. They do not necessarily represent the thinking of Washington’s coaches or front office, nor are they necessarily consistent with fan consensus. This chart represents my personal interpretation, and may not reflect the thoughts of other writers on Hogs Haven. Finally, when it comes to backup players, I don’t put much effort into making sure that they are on the right or left or behind the specific player that they backup. I mostly just try to fit everyone on the chart efficiently.

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For the moment, I have left all of the 2023 Commanders (including those who won’t be under contract after Wednesday) on the depth chart except for RB Antonio Gibson and QB Jacoby Brissett, who have agreed to terms with the Patriots, and K Joey Slye, who has been replaced by Brandon McManus.

Let’s look at the new guys.

TE Zach Ertz

I won’t say much about Ertz since the former Eagle is pretty well-known to most Washington fans. He’s 33 years old and will provide the veteran presence in the TE room that was lost when Logan Thomas was released. Ertz was healthy for just 7 games last season. One reason he was probably signed by Washington is time he spent in Arizona with Kliff Kingsbury, who is now the Commanders’ offensive coordinator. It seems likely that Ertz will help Washington’s young tight end room adjust to the new offense.

LB Frankie Luvu

The Athletic had Luvu ranked 20th on their “big board” of NFL 2024 free agents. Here’s how the website described him:

[Luvu] is very instinctive and blends explosive pop with speed and athletic ability. He’s often all over the field, running and hitting everything — and ball carriers go down when he hits them. He’s also a really good blitzer with some natural pass-rushing skill, and he’s hitting the market with his stock at its peak.

Frankie Luvu is an instant starter for the Commanders at inside linebacker. He will immediately elevate the defense and should provide the best linebacker play we’ve seen since the start of the Ron Rivera era.

K Brandon McManus

McManus is accurate from inside 50 yards, with a career rate of 85.7% from 40-49 yards. Since 2020, however, he has hit 94.8% of his field goals from that distance. Unlike Joey Slye, who struggled with extra points, hitting just 65 of 73 during his 40 games in burgundy & gold, McManus was perfect on 35 attempts last season, and has only 3 misses in 96 attempts over the last 3 seasons.

McManus seems to be a competent kicker. His connection to the Washington coaching staff seems to have its strongest nexus in 2014 when he went through training camp with the NY Giants. Washington’s current special teams coordinator, Larry Izzo, was the Assistant Special Teams Coordinator for the G-men at that time, though there may be a stronger connection elsewhere that I’m overlooking. This seems to be a matter of the coaching staff simply looking at the available kickers and signing the one they felt most comfortable with. McManus is 32 years old, and should be fine as a replacement for Slye.

RB Austin Ekler

Ekler’s link to the Washington coaching staff is very direct. Washington’s offensive run game coordinator, Anthony Lynn, was the head coach of the Chargers from 2017-2020. Ekler spent his entire career (until now) with the Chargers, joining them as an undrafted rookie in 2017, when Lynn was a first-time head coach.

Ekler will obviously be familiar with what Lynn wants to design and implement. At 28 years old, Ekler is at the point in his career where most running backs begin to lose a step, but he will be sharing the load with two young backs in former Alabama player and 3rd year NFL RB Brian Robinson, and 2nd year former Kentucky Wildcat, RB Chris Rodriguez.

Ekler steps into the roster spot left open by Antonio Gibson, who is reportedly signing with the Patriots. You can see a summary comparison of the 2023 season for both players here:

Here’s a look at both players from 2020-2023:

All RB stats from Pro Football Reference

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They are comparable players in many ways, though Ekler has 5,192 yards from scrimmage in the past 4 seasons compared to just 3,926 for Gibson, and Ekler has 2 seasons with more yards from scrimmage than AG’s best season. Another stark difference is Ekler’s 47 touchdowns compared to Gibson’s 29 TDs. Again, Ekler has two seasons with more TDs than Gibson’s best-ever season, and Ekler scored more TDs than Gibson in each of the past three seasons.

It feels as if Ekler can do whatever Gibson could do, and his familiarity with coach Anthony Lynn and the design of his running game will benefit the young running backs he will be working with.

Interior Offensive Line: Tyler Biadasz and Nick Allegretti

Washington drafted Center Ricky Stromberg out of Arkansas a year ago, and the assumption at that time was that Stromberg needed a bit of NFL strength and conditioning, but that the team would enter the 2025 season knowing what they had in the young man. Nick Gates was signed to provide a bridge to that future with Stromberg.

Gates was a disaster and Stromberg managed to stay healthy for just 26 offensive snaps in his rookie year. That meant that Adam Peters, Dan Quinn and Kliff Kingsbury needed a new and flexible plan for the center position in 2024.

Tyler Biadasz
Tyler Biadasz was one of the first players reported to have agreed to terms with the Commanders. He would be very familiar with the new head coach, Dan Quinn, since Quinn spent the past 3 seasons in Dallas, and Biadasz was a 4th round pick of the Cowboys in 2020. Here’s the brief summary of the player from Blogging the Boys:

Biadasz’s rookie contract ran out with the Cowboys this past season, one he carried out well. It was not easy to join a Dallas team looking for a fixture at the position as Travis Frederick’s retirement wasn’t long in the rearview mirror at the time, and like his fellow Wisconsin alumni, Biadasz was a very solid player for the Cowboys.

Biadasz was ranked #65 on The Athletic’s list of top NFL 2024 free agents. He should step into the starting role with Washington and provide stability in the position that the 2023 coaching staff hoped to get from Nick Gates (but didn’t), giving the coaches an opportunity to figure out — finally — what they’ve got in Ricky Stromberg.

Nick Allegretti
Washington also added Nick Allegretti from the Kansas City Chiefs. I saw a number of people on Monday projecting Allegretti as the Commanders next starting left guard. This is both premature and unwarranted, in my opinion.

Allegretti may be a valuable veteran addition to Washington’s offensive line, but he is a career backup with 13 starts and less than 1,200 offensive snaps in a 5-year career in Kansas City. He played a huge role in KC’s most recent super bowl victory when he started for an injured Joe Thuney and finished the game after tearing a ligament in his elbow before halftime. He is also celebrated for catching a touchdown pass against the Steelers in the AFC Wildcard game following the 2021 season. Nevertheless, Allegretti is not a proven NFL starting lineman.

Per PFF, Allegretti has has played 1,282 snaps at left guard, 123 snaps at right guard, and 80 snaps at center. I’m sure that Allegretti signed with Washington in part because he will have the opportunity to compete for a starting job on the left side, but he has only 4 starts on his resume over the past three seasons (2021-23), albeit one of those starts was a super bowl.

I have Allegretti listed as a backup at LG on the depth chart, though I am open to the possibility of him moving up quickly this offseason as we learn more about him. Based on his history, I see him as a primary backup at LG, and the 3rd string (emergency) center.

DL Dorance Armstrong

Along with Biadasz, Armstrong came here from Dallas and was identified almost immediately after the negotiating window opened as being on his way to Washington.

Armstrong has been a success story in Dallas as a rotational pass rusher with flexibility to line up on the inside against interior offensive linemen.

Here’s what Blogging the Boys had to say about Armstong on Monday:

Armstrong agreeing to go to the Commanders isn’t surprising in the slightest and will provide a useful utility for a Washington team undergoing a rebuild. Armstrong can play on the edge and has some upside as an interior rusher on passing downs, also serving a special teamer on punt blocks.

Armstrong has a lot of tread left on the tire at only 26 years old. Armstrong set a career-high with 8.5 sacks in 2022, having started in only five games. After trading their top two rushers, Montez Sweat and Chase Young, at the trade deadline the Commanders had a major need for edge players. Armstrong’s signing gives the Commanders a sensible signing with free agency barely underway.

There’s a good chance that Armstrong, playing under defensive coordinator Joe Whitt, who knows him very well, will get the opportunity to play more defensive snaps and become even more productive in Washington than he was in Dallas. He is an immediate upgrade to Washington’s two late-round picks from the 2023 draft, KJ Henry and Andre Jones, who both flashed late in their rookie seasons, but who are not ready to be every-down NFL starters on a competitive team.

The Commanders aren’t done with the DE position yet; they will probably need to sign at least one more free agent, and will likely target a pass rusher with one of their top six draft picks in April.

Overall

I feel like the front office had a solid start to the roster rebuilding recalibration that will likely last beyond the 2024 season. The floor was raised in several position groups: LB, DL, OL, RB and TE, and the team secured a reliable kicker.

Adam Peters & Co shouldn’t be done yet. In my most recent depth chart update that followed the release of Charles Leno, Nick Gates and Logan Thomas, I said that I thought Peters would probably aim to sign around a dozen players in veteran free agency, so, with these 7 players, they are only about halfway (or a little more) to the roster they need to have before the April 27th NFL Draft.

The team currently has 49 players under contract and agreements with another 7 (counting Ertz as ‘unsigned’ for the moment) to bring the projected roster to 56 guys. The goal is 90 for training camp, and the team has 9 draft picks, so there’s plenty of room left, and still plenty of cap space available for similar contract agreements.

While I don’t expect the Commanders to continue the blistering pace of agreeing to terms with 6 veteran free agents in a single day, I do expect them to remain active in veteran free agency, and to add another half dozen players or more in the coming days and weeks to fill out the 2024 offseason depth chart.