Poll questions!!
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NFL. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Washington Commanders fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.
In today’s Reacts survey, we have two questions related to the defensive line and which players are most likely to fill out the back end of the depth chart.
Last season, the Commanders brass decided to open the season with an 8-man group that was basically 4 defensive tackles and 4 defensive ends, though a number of players were capable of playing more than one position. Later on, the team added a 9th player to the DL group and kept the depth chart at 7 players for most of the season.
Based on what they did last year, it seems reasonable to think that the team will have 8 or 9 players comprising the defensive line group.
I think there are six players in the DL group who are locks or near-locks for the roster.
- Dorance Armstrong
- Daron Payne
- Javon Kinlaw
- Deatrich Wise
- Johnny Newton
- (Clelin Ferrell)
Honestly, I don’t think Clelin Ferrell is a roster lock, but I believe that if I included his name among the DEs in today’s survey, he would get the bulk of the votes, making the exercise largely pointless, so I’m treating him, in this article, as if he is in the roster lock group.
Personally, I might’ve been a bit hesitant to include Deatrich Wise in this group, but his $3.1m contract with $2.35m in guaranteed money argues that the team is committed to having him on the roster this year.
In today’s two questions, you are invited to pick, from two short lists, one defensive tackle and one defensive end who will make the 53-man roster for the Week 1 opener against the Giants.
Question 1 – Defensive tackles
The three candidates are all experienced NFL veterans who have played between 7 and 9 seasons each, and who all have a cap hit of just over $1m. Two of the players — Sheldon Day and Carl Davis — were with the Commanders last year. Each spent time on both the practice squad and the 53-man roster, though Day was active for 12 games while Davis was active for only 3.
Eddie Goldman has gotten a lot of attention from Commanders fans and media after being signed in March free agency. While Goldman was active for 17 games with the Falcons in 2024, he played 30% of his team’s defensive snaps, compared to 35% for Day and 23% for Davis.
Goldman is well-known among fans for having missed 3 NFL seasons by his own choice. He opted out of the 2020 COVID year, and retired ahead of the ‘22 season, missing both the ‘22 and ‘23 seasons before signing with Atlanta in 2024.
Sheldon Day was, statistically, the most productive of the three, with 24 tackles, 2 tackles for loss and a QB hit.
Much has been made of Goldman’s size — he’s listed on the team site at 6’3”, 332 lbs. Davis is listed at 6’5”, 320 lbs, and Day at 6’1”, 285 lbs.
Question 2 – Defensive ends
The dark horse here seems to be Andre Jones Jr, a former Ron Rivera draft pick who has played only 188 defensive snaps in 2 seasons, though he did play 250 special teams snaps as a rookie.
The remaining 3-horse race includes a 2nd-year player drafted by Adam Peters in the 7th round last year, Javontae Jean-Baptiste, and a pair of 7-year veterans in Jalyn Holmes, who started last season with the Jets but finished with Washington, and Jacob Martin, who has played for 6 NFL teams and was with the Bears last season where he spent nearly 2 months on IR to open the season.
When I listed Jalyn Holmes as a defensive end in another article earlier this offseason, a question was raised about whether he was a DE or a DT. I decided to find out for myself if the PFF charting I had relied on for that article was accurate or flawed. I picked one game — the 19 snaps Holmes played against the Eagles in Week 11 — and charted his alignments for the entire game. I learned two things. First, Holmes can be identified quickly on film because he plays with a long compression sleeve on his left arm but not on his right, and, second, PFF is pretty good at tracking pre-snap alignments. My alignment chart matched that of PFF almost exactly.
In watching subsequent game replays this offseason, it was pretty clear that Holmes’ primary position in Joe Whitt’s defense was at defensive left end in 2024, typically lined up as more of a 7-tech than a 5-tech, though he moves around a bit. In ‘24, out of 265 defensive snaps, he lined up at 5-tech or 7-tech on the left side 126 times, and as the RDE 97 times, with DE comprising 84% of his defensive snaps in Whitt’s schemes.
For a look at Holmes on film, you can read Mark Bullock’s defensive line film breakdown, which was published yesterday and which is also linked in Wednesday’s Daily Slop.
Holmes played only 28% of defensive snaps last year compared to 32% for Jacob Martin, but Holmes played 43 more snaps overall because Martin missed 6 games with a toe injury. While their production on a per-game-played basis is fairly comparable, a look at the contracts signed by the two players ($2.4m/$1m guaranteed for Martin; $1.2m for Holmes) indicates that the front office is more committed to this year’s free agent addition than to last year’s free agent addition.
Another advantage might be Martin’s special teams play. Last season, he lined up on special teams 206 times in 11 games, far out-stripping the competition from the three players who were on the Commanders roster last season.
As with the DT position, the coaches have a choice between the familiar (Holmes, Jean-Baptiste) and the new (Martin). Unlike the DT position, the contract situation may tip us to which player has the inside track to a roster spot.
Comments & Results
Of course, we invite you to answer the survey questions below, but also feel free to expand on your answers and provide nuance in the comments section. I rely on those comments when discussing the results of the survey when they are posted in a separate article the next few days.