ASHBURN, Va. — Again, where are we? When are we?
You may recall a year ago, the Commanders, going nowhere fast, shed star players at the trade deadline, sending Chase Young to the 49ers for a 2024 third-round pick, and Montez Sweat to the Bears for Chicago’s second-round pick. At the time, Ron Rivera was in charge, and surely hoped he’d be the one using that extra capital to rebuild his downtrodden team the following spring. Didn’t turn out that way, of course, with Josh Harris ending the “coach-centric” approach that gave Rivera the juice on personnel moves as well as coaching, and bringing Adam Peters in from San Francisco to run the show.
A year later, Peters is the general manager of a 7-2 team, one of the true surprises in the NFL, with a seemingly decade-long franchise quarterback in Jayden Daniels around whom to build, a coach in Dan Quinn who has the pulse of his locker room and a team full of similarly minded players. And that gave Peters the latitude to take a big swing at this year’s deadline, bringing four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Marshon Lattimore from the Saints.
It was the big swing of a team that believes in its coaches and players, and not just for this season. And in beating out the Chiefs and Ravens for Lattimore, Peters put down a marker: he can swim with the big boys, and land a big fish.
“It’s a little nerve-wracking,” Peters said Wednesday. “But if you really want somebody, and you think it’s the right value, then you do that.”
It’s another indication of how impossibly different things are with this franchise now. This wasn’t Dan Snyder gassing up his private jet and pulling out his checkbook to buy the prettiest, shiniest ornament, no matter whether it made sense on his tree. (Albert Haynesworth, with Mike Shanahan? What could go wrong?) This was a calculated risk — and there is a risk — with Washington sending three picks to New Orleans for the 28-year-old Lattimore, who’s battled injuries, mostly hamstrings, the last few years. But Lattimore was the best corner available by far, for a team desperate for improvement from its secondary.
Bringing in someone of Lattimore’s caliber also signals to the locker room that their work surrounding Daniels and helping him lift the franchise has been noticed. In year one, the front office is willing to mortgage some of the future to further bolster the present.
I made the mistake, though, of sharing this theory with Bobby Wagner — that he came to D.C. to join a rebuilding team, one that’s been punching above its expected weight for seven weeks.
“Did I?” Webster asked, a grin on his face.
But he played along.
“One, (getting Lattimore) signifies that we want to win now, but two, we have such an amazing culture here,” Wagner said. “I think it’s grown faster than people expected, but we have an amazing culture. It’s going to show, whether or not somebody comes in, and we can bring him along into this culture. We are the place to do it, and he’s a great player to come into this culture.”
Twelve months ago, Washington was 3-5, about to lose its last eight games. Rivera continued to insist that Sam Howell was the long-term answer at quarterback. Jack Del Rio was running the defense. There were still high hopes that Jahan Dotson would become a consistent number two receiver opposite Terry McLaurin. Emmanuel Forbes was supposed to be the CB1 of the future. Rookie safety Quan Martin, Washington’s second-round pick in 2023, was still working through the kinks. (To be fair, Martin, now a starter at safety, was one of Rivera’s draft successes.)
A year later …
“I think it just speaks that they want what’s the best for the team. And we trust what they’re doing,” Daniels said Wednesday.
“Obviously, they do their job, they’re hired, and they expect from myself to do their job at a high level, just like they expect us to go out there and put our best foot forward. So, anything that Adam and his staff is doing, man, we trust it no matter what. It’s how can we have Marshon indulge in our brotherhood and how can we bring him along to go out there and when those Sundays come and go out there and make plays and be confident.”
Lattimore is still elite when healthy. He plays with speed, intelligence and toughness. And with his ability to travel — following the opposing team’s top receiver all over the field — he allows a defense all manner of freedom. A shutdown corner lets defensive gurus move even more people around to create more pass rush, which should allow corners of Lattimore’s caliber to jump routes. That was Quinn’s and defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr.’s MO in Dallas.
“You’re definitely barking up the right tree,” a smiling Quinn said Wednesday.
Quinn has spoken frequently about the need for his defense to create more turnovers. Lattimore has 15 career interceptions in 97 games played. With most teams using three- and four-receiver sets in base offenses, cornerbacks don’t travel as much as they did back in the day. But Lattimore will certainly lock in on the top opposing receivers left on Washington’s schedule — the Eagles’ A.J. Brown, the Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb and his now former Saints teammate Chris Olave. Whether or not Lattimore turns opponents over, he should help further stabilize Washington’s defense, just as Wagner and Frankie Luvu are giving the Commanders linebacker play they haven’t had in years.
“We can do whatever we want to do because he’s going to take care of a whole person,” safety Jeremy Chinn said of Lattimore. “There’s a lot of players in this league that you have to identify on the offensive side of the ball, and really have to work around them, and kind of scheme your defense around them. But when you have a cornerback that can really just shut somebody down, it opens up the playbook.”
The tough part of the Commanders’ schedule is coming up — Pittsburgh Sunday, at Philadelphia Thursday, and the Dak Prescott-less Cowboys on Nov. 24. If Washington wins two of its next three, it’ll have nine wins. The franchise hasn’t won nine games in a season since 2015. A year after the near-fire sale, when the franchise’s future felt so bleak, the Commanders can put a lot of chips in the middle of the table, and it seems on brand.
(Top photo of Marshon Lattimore with New Orleans earlier this season: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
