Washington

Washington Commanders Positional Review: Wide Receiver

Published

2 years ago

February 28, 2024

Washington Commanders Positional Review: Wide Receiver

The Washington Commanders enter the offseason with a league-average wide receiver room. Terry McLaurin just completed his fourth straight 1,000-yard season and remains the team’s leader in every sense of the word. Unfortunately, Jahan Dotson regressed in his second year, and Curtis Samuel is headed for unrestricted free agency. As mentioned in the Running Back Review, Washington is well-positioned with both cap space and draft capital to upgrade across the roster. The Commanders will acquire another starting wide receiver this offseason.

Commanders Wide Receiver Review

Current Depth Chart

Terry McLaurin

Washington’s top two receivers are locked in for 2024, at minimum. The 28-year-old McLaurin signed a 3-year, $68.3 million deal through 2025 and has been well worth his money. He’s a pillar of consistency for a franchise mired in inconsistency. 2023 marks McLaurin’s third consecutive season in which he’s played all 17 games and recorded at least 77 catches, 1,000 yards, and four touchdowns. He’s a no-brainer WR1 and will likely be playing with his tenth different starting NFL quarterback next season.

Jahan Dotson

2022 first-round pick Jahan Dotson didn’t live up to the hype after a promising rookie season. Despite playing in five more games as a sophomore, he decreased both his yardage total and touchdown total from his rookie year. Additionally, the team passed for almost 400 more yards in 2023 than in 2022, demonstrating that Dotson commanded a smaller piece of a larger pie in his second year. But it gets worse. Reception Perception founder Matt Harmon expressed legitimate concerns regarding Dotson’s route-running regression and long-term upside. He enters a make-or-break season in 2024.

The Others

In addition to McLaurin and Dotson, Washington currently has five other receivers on the roster: Dyami Brown, Dax Milne, Mitchell Tinsley, Bryce Tremayne, and Davion Davis. Of these, only Tinsley is signed beyond 2024, and only Brown holds a dead cap hit of more than $20,000. To summarize, none are guarantees to make the active roster next season. Brown could resume his role as a serviceable fourth receiver but shouldn’t be trusted as a full-time player. The most interesting prospect of the group could be Tinsley, who made a splash in the preseason and could be ready for a bigger role. Milne, Tremayne, and Davis belong on the practice squad.

Free Agent Options

Tee Higgins, CIN

Given his age (25) and perceived upside, Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins could land one of the biggest contracts in free agency this offseason. It would only make sense for the team with the most cap space in the NFL to sign him. Joe Burrow has been outspoken about his desire to re-sign his talented 6’4″ 219 lbs receiver, but Higgins isn’t the only Bengals receiver who expects to be paid. Superstar Ja’Marr Chase will be a free agent next offseason and will likely jump to the top of Cincy’s list of priorities. Washington could swoop in and outbid the Bengals.

Gabriel Davis, BUF

Gabe Davis fits the big-bodied field-stretcher archetype that would theoretically complement McLaurin and Dotson well. Davis has been unpredictable on a game-by-game basis but consistent on a season-long basis. Through four seasons, he’s played in at least 15 games, averaged at least 15.7 yards per catch, and scored at least six touchdowns every year. For perspective, McLaurin hasn’t exceeded 15.7 yards per catch since his rookie season, and Dotson averaged 10.6 YPC this year. At an expected $13.6 million annual price tag, Davis could be worth the investment.

Draft Options

Devontez Walker, UNC

The 2024 rookie wide receiver class looks incredible. According to a compilation of 107 big boards, there are 13 wide receivers listed in the top 56 NFL prospects. The Commanders could turn to the receiver position with picks 67, 101, or 103. If so, Tez Walker is one of the most interesting options. He’s listed at 6’3″ 200 lbs and can take the top off the defense with his long speed. After transferring from Kent State, Walker teamed with potential #2 pick Drake Maye to average 17.0 yards per catch and score 7 touchdowns in 2023. Maye and Walker could form the UNC-to-D.C. connection that Sam Howell and Dyami Brown never could.

Brenden Rice, USC

You might have heard of his father. And, like Tez Walker, Brenden Rice had the luxury of catching passes from a pretty good college quarterback too. But Rice is a solid prospect in his own right. He scored 12 touchdowns on 17.6 yards per catch at 6’2″ and 210 lbs, fitting the mold that the Commanders should be looking for. While Walker wins with speed, however, Rice wins with superior route-running and physicality. With McLaurin and Rice on the boundaries, Dotson in the slot, and an upgraded tight end, Washington’s skill group would be ready-made for a rookie quarterback.

Main Photo: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

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Washington

This Day in History: Booker T. Washington was born

Published

11 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

This Day in History: Booker T. Washington was born

(WDBJ) – April 5, 1856:

Booker T. Washington was born in Franklin County, Virginia.

Washington would later gain fame for championing humanitarian efforts for African Americans, establishing the Tuskegee Institute, a school for African Americans, in 1881.

Gray Media, parent company of WDBJ7, is celebrating the upcoming 250th birthday of the United States of America with a year-long look at our country called “We the People”.

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Freeman, Pages lead another offensive barrage by the Dodgers in a 10-5 win over Washington – WTOP News

Published

1 day ago

April 4, 2026

Press Room

Freeman, Pages lead another offensive barrage by the Dodgers in a 10-5 win over Washington – WTOP News

Freddie Freeman hit two-run doubles in the first and second innings and Andy Pages added a three-run homer in the fifth to help the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 10-5 rout of the Washington Nationals.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Freddie Freeman hit two-run doubles in the first and second innings and Andy Pages added a three-run homer in the fifth to help the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 10-5 rout of the Washington Nationals on Saturday.

Pages went 3 for 5 to raise his average to .500 (15 for 30) on the young season. The Dodgers have scored 23 runs on 32 hits in the first two games of this series despite losing Mookie Betts in the first inning Saturday because of lower back pain.

Tyler Glasnow (1-0) allowed two runs and four hits in six innings. He struck out nine with two walks.

Jake Irvin (1-1) allowed six runs and eight hits in four innings.

CJ Abrams homered for the Nationals.

Miguel Rojas, who replaced Betts at shortstop before the bottom of the first, hit a sacrifice fly in the second to make it 3-0. Then Freeman hit his second double of the game.

The Dodgers used the Automated Ball-Strike System to score another run in the third. Alex Call successfully challenged a called third strike with two outs, then hit an RBI single.

Luis García Jr. got Washington on the board with an RBI triple in the third, and Curtis Mead doubled home a run in the fourth, but Pages connected off reliever Brad Lord to make it 9-2.

Kyle Tucker hit an RBI single in the seventh for the final Los Angeles run.

Will Smith had three hits for the Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani had two.

Garcia finished a homer shy of the cycle for Washington, and Abrams hit a two-run shot in the eighth.

Up next

The Dodgers try for a sweep Sunday, sending Roki Sasaki (0-0) to the mound against Foster Griffin (1-0).

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

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© 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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Washington Post: Sewage spill in Potomac happened after yearslong construction delays – WTOP News

Published

2 days ago

April 3, 2026

Press Room

Washington Post: Sewage spill in Potomac happened after yearslong construction delays – WTOP News

The Washington Post discovered that D.C. Water had planned to reinforce the ruptured Potomac Interceptor line years earlier, but construction was repeatedly delayed during a federal environmental review.

New information has emerged on the massive sewage spill in the Potomac River in January, when a sewer line in the C&O Canal National Historical Park in Montgomery County collapsed, sending more than 200 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the river.

In an exclusive report, The Washington Post has learned that D.C. Water had planned to reinforce that line years earlier, but construction was repeatedly delayed during a federal environmental review.

Now, D.C. Water and the National Park Service are blaming each other.

Washington Post investigative reporter Aaron Davis broke the story, and he joined WTOP’s Nick Iannelli to breakdown the latest.

Read and listen to the interview below.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Davis speaks with WTOP’s Nick Iannelli about new information on the Potomac Interceptor pipe disaster.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Nick Iannelli:
There were some concerns about this particular section of pipe have been in the air for a while. What did D.C. Water already know about this section of pipe?
Aaron Davis:
When this first happened, back in January, we were all asking, ‘When did D.C. Water know about this spot? What did the inspections of this spot show?’
D.C. Water said, ‘Well, we’ve done inspections, and we weren’t expecting anything to be a problem anytime soon in this particular section.’
But the story goes back and starts around 2018, more than seven years ago, when D.C. Water had done a video inspection inside this pipe. Just a little bit upstream of the spot that ruptured, they saw something very concerning. They saw that the metal reinforcements through this concrete pipe were basically dangling, falling out of the top of the pipe, and they said, ‘We need to fix this.’
So they asked the National Park Service in 2018 to fix about a three-quarter-mile stretch to reinforce the whole thing, but almost from the beginning, that whole endeavor falls off the rails. By the following year, in 2019, the project is listed as 255 days behind schedule. D.C. Water says it’s because the National Park Service is doing an extended review.
One of the big roadblocks that happened in the whole scheme of that seven-year time period is in 2021, when it looks like D.C. Water got their approval. But they come back to the Park Service and say, ‘We’re going to have to cut down some more trees. We’re going to have to do a little bit more work to get down there in the pipe.’
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And Park Service says, ‘Whoa, hang on. We need to take a more intensive look at this, do a bigger environmental review.’
And that really sets it on a course that is very laborious, and these delays keep compounding to the point where Jan. 19, when this pipe ruptured, they had still not approved the environmental review to conduct the repairs on the section that collapsed.

Nick Iannelli:
What were some of the things under review during that environmental assessment?
Aaron Davis:
They go through and they look at something called the ‘buttercup scorpionweed,’ which I’d never heard about, but that’s a blue flower, kind of a wildflower that blooms in this part of the C&O Canal. And they had to mitigate for that.
They said, ‘If we take down too many trees, and they were talking about 260 trees, that would impact something called the northern long-eared bat.’
And so, they had to come up with a mitigation plan for that.

Nick Iannelli:
So D.C. Water literally said, in these documents that you’ve uncovered, that if this is left unaddressed, the corrosion in this pipe could ‘result in a catastrophic failure, leading to the release of raw sewage into the soil, groundwater and waterways.’ That is literally what happened.
What is the Park Service saying, and what is D.C. Water saying?
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Aaron Davis:
The Park Service tells us that they could never really begin to evaluate this because D.C. Water kept changing the plans, and that kept starting over the environmental process. And so it was really D.C. Water’s fault.
D.C. Water has been very careful in saying, ‘We’ve been following the Park Service’s direction and we’re trying to do and accomplish what they want.’
D.C. Water is in kind of a tough spot here, because so much of their infrastructure is on federal park land, and so they often need the approval of the National Park Service to do any construction on their own lines.

Nick Iannelli:
In looking through these documents and the information from D.C. Water, as it relates to this specific portion of pipe that collapsed, is there any other information that would suggest that there are other parts of the pipe that are vulnerable to this sort of thing?
Aaron Davis:
There’s a concerning slide that some of the engineers inside D.C. Water presented to the executives back in November of 2024, so this is a little over 18 months ago. And if you look at that map, which is the 50-mile-long Potomac Interceptor that stretches all the way out to Dulles Airport, there are a lot of sections that are either in orange or in red. And those two sections, by the color-coded system, are worse than the spot that ruptured back in January.
The spot that ruptured in January was listed as having a ‘moderate’ defect from corrosion. The other parts we’re seeing, there’s at least one spot in those other sections that is either rated as ‘very significant’ or ‘critical.’
There are many other places that are corroding inside the Potomac Interceptor, and you couple that with what the utility has said publicly since the disaster, which is that they’re now wondering if there are big boulders buried on top of other parts of the line that could create pressure points and lead to that kind of failure like what we just saw.
They were actually lucky that the rupture happened where it happened, because just a few 100 yards away was the C&O Canal that they could use as an open-air sewer and temporarily divert things. There’s a whole lot of stretches through Virginia, and even under the Potomac River itself, where there is no other redundancy, there’s no other canal they can put the sewage into. It ended up taking 54 days to repair that pipe this time.
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