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!
The Athletic (paywall)
[A]s Magee enters his third season, when many players are expected to take a leap in their play and production, Magee now faces another hurdle to becoming a key starter for Washington: competition.
The Commanders drafted Sonny Styles in the first round with the clear intention of making him the “mike,” or the middle linebacker typically tasked with wearing the green dot and relaying plays to the rest of the defense. He is, essentially, the projected heir apparent to Wagner, who remains an unsigned free agent.
Norton and Quinn have praised Magee as a potential three-down linebacker, with the versatility to move around the front seven. Washington sought to get faster and younger this offseason, and Magee fits the bill; his closing speed was on display multiple times last season, but he also showed his inexperience.
“He’s taken all the necessary steps,” Norton said of Magee last week. “He’s doing all the things correctly. It’s just a very competitive room. And he, along with Frankie and everybody else in the room, is going to have to continue to really compete to play.”
Commanders Roundtable
1. Cornerback Trey Amos
Why the Breakout? Amos will enter his sophomore year fully healthy and locked in as a foundational piece of the secondary opposite Amik Robertson and Mikey Sainristil. At 6’1″ with high-end short-area explosiveness, Amos is the purest boundary corner on the roster. He fits like a glove in Daronte Jones’ defensive system, which champions length on the outside and relies heavily on aggressive shell coverages.
In this scheme, cornerbacks are repeatedly asked to jam receivers at the line of scrimmage, disrupting the timing of the route by just a half-second. That minor hesitation forces the quarterback to hold the ball longer, allowing the front seven to hit home with exotic blitz packages and trigger poor decisions, bad throws, or sacks. Amos’s natural instincts and physical tools have already flashed; now, he’s in a system that maximizes his strengths.
The Athletic (paywall)
Jayden Daniels’ rebound
After taking the league by storm as a rookie in 2024, Jayden Daniels battled injury throughout the 2025 campaign, and as a result, the Commanders took major steps backwards in Year 2 under Dan Quinn. With Daniels healthy again, the Commanders hope they can again compete in the NFC East and the conference.
Part of Daniels’ road back will involve gaining comfort in a modified offense. Gone is Kliff Kingsbury, and Quinn elevated assistant quarterbacks coach David Blough to offensive coordinator. The 30-year-old former NFL...
