Hogs Haven
Editor’s note: Each day, Hogs Haven compiles a collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East, the NFL and sports in general, with a sprinkling of other stuff. Enjoy!
A to Z Sports
It’ll take a down year for a late-drafted WR to win this award, but this looks like a down year. Only two quarterbacks were taken in the first two rounds, and one of them (Ty Simpson) has no chance of earning a starting job. Should Mendoza not surpass Cousins until midseason or struggle statistically when he starts, the field opens up.
The running back class this year was historically weak. RB3 (Kaelon Black) left the board at No. 90 — the latest the third running back has been taken in the common draft era (since 1967). Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price are the two first-round running backs, but Price is reportedly facing a timeshare in Seattle, while Love will labor on a bad Cardinals team eyeing the 2027 No. 1 pick. The likelihood a running back wins the award this season is as thin as I can remember.
There is hardly any competition in the Commanders’ receivers room behind Terry McLaurin. Williams will catch passes from Jayden Daniels, a remarkably better quarterback than players such as KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston (Browns) or Omar Cooper Jr. (Jets) will work with in 2026. Williams still needs to dodge the late-summer addition of a Brandon Aiyuk or Stefon Diggs, but his path to high-quality targets is shockingly clear for a third-round pick.
Williams is also a hand-in-glove fit for David Blough’s Detroit-inspired offense. Williams is an easy glider who makes fearless catches over the middle of the field.
He is evidently cut from the Amon-Ra St. Brown cloth, and St. Brown’s reliability helped him break into the Lions’ starting lineup as a fourth-round rookie.
If the Commanders suddenly need to funnel six-plus targets per game his way, he has the deep tool kit and reliable play style to sustain that volume. There are few middle-round rookies for whom I have rosier Year 1 projections than Williams.
NFLcom
2025 stats: 17 games | 162 tackles | 8 tfl | 4.5 sacks | 2 INT | 4 FF
The timeless linebacker continues to rack up standout seasons at the tail end of his Hall of Fame career. Wagner has never fallen short of triple-digit tackles in a season through 14 years in the league, and he now sits third all time — just 59 behind Ray Lewis’s record — with 2,000, per Pro Football Reference. Never out of place, Wagner was credited by Next Gen Stats with 69 run stops in 2025, second in the NFL. He’s as steady of...
