It’s 5 o’clock somewhere…
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One position group (of many) that is filled with question marks heading into 2025 is interior offensive line. This group seemed to be in pretty good shape as the 2024 season came to an end, with C Tyler Biadasz, RG Sam Cosmi, and LG Nick Allegretti all under contract in Washington for 2025, but Cosmi’s ACL injury in the playoffs threw a wrench into roster planning for the offensive line. Right guard went from being the most secured position in the unit to be the biggest hole. A compounding factor in solving it is the fact that Cosmi’s replacement needs to be high-quality, but not long-term since the Commanders will obviously want their 2021 second-round draft pick to return to the lineup as soon as he is healthy, whenever that may be.
2024 roster
C Tyler Biadasz signed with Washington as a free agent last year on a 3-yr, $30m contract. He played well for the Commanders and appears to be a solid part of the roster core for the coming two seasons. His backup Michael Deiter played poorly, and will almost certainly not be re-signed by the Commanders for the coming season.
Had RG Sam Cosmi not torn his ACL in the playoffs, I probably would have written that the Commanders should focus on trying to upgrade the LG position held by Nick Allegretti, who, like Biadasz, signed a 3-yr contract in 2024, but for considerably less money ($16m for 3 years). With Cosmi’s injury, any upgrade at LG may need to be put on the back burner.
Backups Chris Paul and Julian Good-Jones are both under contract for 2025. I think it’s fair to say that the depth at all three interior positions needs to be addressed with some urgency in free agency and the draft
2025 Estimated cap space and free agency options
Following the release of Jonathan Allen on Friday, the Commanders have an estimated Effective Cap Space of about $74.1m.
NOTE: Earlier this week, Washington announced the re-signing of kicker Zane Gonzalez, and it was confirmed that All Pro LB Bobby Wagner has been re-signed as well.
Both contracts were reported to be one-year deals — Gonzalez for an estimated $1.2m and Wagner for a reported $8m guaranteed plus incentives. Neither has (yet) been added to the Over the Cap database and so neither is included in these figures.
It seems probable that the two signings (together) will reduce Commanders estimated cap space by just over $9m.
The breakdown looks like this:
- Current estimated available cap space (46 players): $80.76m
- Less: Cap space required to sign draft picks: $8.32m
- Add back: Rule of 51 offsets/other adjustments: $1.67m
- 2025 Effective Cap Space: $74.11m
- Less: allowance for injury replacement during season: $5.11m
- 2025 Cap space available for signing/re-signing veteran free agents: $69m
(If you reduce the available space for the extensions for Wagner & Gonzalez, roughly an estimated $65m in cap space would remain for free agency before subtracting the value of the Zach Ertz contract, which was reported late last night. )
Washington currently has one solid healthy starter (Biadasz) and one acceptable starter (Allegretti) backed up by two unproven backups to man three key positions. The team will clearly need to be active in both free agency and the draft to add a starter and one or two quality backups to the interior offensive line to be ready to compete in 2025.
For a full list of upcoming free agents, CLICK HERE
The list can be sorted by team or position.
Of course, some — maybe even most — of the most talented of these players will re-sign with their current teams, but Washington should be a popular destination for free agents looking for an opportunity to get to the playoffs with a dynamic quarterback. Washington should offer more appeal to high-quality free agents than at any other time in this century.
Options in the NFL Draft
Below is a list of college interior offensive linemen who will be entering the NFL via the draft in April, ranked by CBS Sports.
The overall rank in the left column can provide some general guidance about which round each player is expected to be drafted in, though such rankings are highly subjective and likely to change substantially between now and the end of April.
Washington holds the following draft picks (per Tankathon):
