ClutchPoints
There are massive expectations for the Washington Commanders this year. They burst onto the scene last year thanks to Jayden Daniels’s performance as a rookie. He led the Commanders to the playoffs last season, and they reached the NFC Championship game before losing. This year’s team has even higher expectations, but not everyone has the same expectations for them in 2025.
Senior NFL writer Bill Barnwell released a piece on which 14 NFL teams he thinks will make the postseason this year. Among those teams, he picked the Commanders as one of the teams that take a step back and miss the postseason. He cites that they were highly efficient on fourth down, have a roster that is not getting younger, the injury bug is likely to turn around, and a much more challenging schedule.
Barnwell elaborated more: “The Commanders are probably my controversial pick among teams to miss the postseason. I already covered the unsustainable elements of what we saw from them in 2024 in my likely-to-decline list, including a historically great performance on fourth down, an old roster without many breakout candidates, an injury rate that’s likely to rise, and a much tougher schedule after a trip to the playoffs.”
That he picked the Commanders to take a step back is not an indictment on the rest of the roster, and when you have Jayden Daniels, they can sustain that. The fourth-down success may not matter as much this season, too, after they added Laremy Tunsil on the offensive line and Deebo Samuel in the receiving corps.
However, Barnwell’s comparison to the 2024 Houston Texans fits extremely well because the flashy additions could distract from the rest of the roster’s inability to sustain success outside of the quarterback position with Daniels.
Barnwell continued, “Nobody in the AFC South could challenge the Texans as they struggled to take that next step forward, but things will be tougher in the NFC East with the Eagles in tow.”
The Commanders are a very talented team and are better than most of the NFL, and seeing a notable name in the NFL media landscape say that he thinks they will miss the postseason is a big shock and statement on how the NFL is an ever-changing league, with how close the margin of error is.
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