How to fix the Washington team: my perspective
November 3, 2026
by Steve Thomas
Happy election day! I think I can speak for all non-politicians, on both sides of the aisle, by saying that I’m very glad it’s going to be over after today. On to football news. Much has been made about the failures of the Redskins Washington Football Team Commanders Washington to live up to the standards set in 2024, or even improve on last year’s disaster. We all knew that the first half of the 2026 season was going to be very tough – I predicted that they’d be 1 – 5 heading into the bye week, and I wasn’t alone in that thought. So, the record itself isn’t surprising. The unexpected part has been just how inept and unprepared the team has looked at times. Washington has been plagued by silly pre-snap penalties, inexcusable lack of understanding about game situations, and inconsistent play. This team hasn’t really put together a solid 4 quarters of play in a game all season, even in Sunday’s win over the Eagles, which at times was a battle to see which team could be less of a mess.
I think it’s likely that the team does a bit better in the second half of the season, because the schedule gets a little easier and definitely has a few winnable games. That having been said, absent some sort of remarkable and unexpected turnaround, Washington very likely isn’t going to make the playoffs. Such a result will no doubt result in changes being made.
The question posed is what, exactly, Josh Harris and company should do about the current state of affairs. That’s what I’d like to cover today. Consider this column as the companion piece to my “State of the Franchise” column from last week (click here to read)
General Manager
No, Adam Peters hasn’t had a particularly good track record of success here in Washington. I detailed his record in the draft and free agency last week, so I’m not going to repeat it here. Suffice to say that, in my opinion, Peters isn’t going to get fired after this season. He’s going to stick around for at least another year or two. However, he needs to rebuild much of the roster, because the group they have now simply isn’t working. Peters would be wise to change his strategy to get away from pricey free agent veterans and focus on young talent in the draft. I don’t know whether he needs to replace his collegiate scouting team, but their relative lack of success in that area obviously needs to change. The only way for Peters to build a team that can consistently win for several years – think Joe Gibbs’ first tenure in D.C. – is through the draft. This is what the Green Bay Packers have done, mostly, for more than a generation. Follow that model.
The summary is (1) Peters isn’t going anywhere, and (2) build through the draft.
Coaching staff
The other thing that Peters is going to have to do is to probably replace the entire coaching staff. Two seasons of double-digit losses on the heels of an NFC Championship game appearance simply isn’t going to cut it. I don’t believe there’s any point in firing this coaching staff during the season – that isn’t going to improve this season’s results, and they aren’t going to get a new head coach in here until the offseason. Firing Quinn probably means leaving either David Blough or Daronte Jones in charge as interim head coach, and that’s not going to change much for this season.
This has to be done – we’ve seen too many examples of the coaching staff not understanding the in-game situation this season. I also put at least some of the blame for the penalties on the coaching staff, because some of them appear to stem from a lack of team discipline, and that’s ultimately on the coach.
The trick, of course, is to find the right coach, especially give that a change is going to mean that both the offense and the defense are going to be subject to their third systems in four seasons. I don’t want to go through the exercise of picking names here, because that’s a whole other column, and I need to put alot of thought into it. Suffice to say that the team needs to be looking for an up-and-coming coordinator, not some older veteran coach. I’ll have more on this in future columns.
Offense
As I said last week, I’m not sure Jayden Daniels really is the long-term answer at quarterback. Since the end of his historically-great rookie year, Daniels has posted a passer rating of 91.9 over the 11 games he’s started, which is ranked just 18th amongst the 34 quarterbacks who’ve started at least 10 games in 2025 and 2026. That’s good, but not great. His quarterback rating in his 4 games this season is 97.6, which once again is good but not great. He had a 100.1 rating in 2024. Washington can either pick up his fifth year option or just outright extend him after this season. They also need to figure out what system is right for him – Washington was supposed to play more under center this season in part to keep Daniels from running so much and getting injured, but they are still operating out of the shotgun much more than most NFL teams. Personally, I think the team should wait to see how the rest of the rest goes for Daniels before deciding on a course of action. If Daniels can improve back into a reasonable facsimile of his rookie year statistical production while staying healthy – the latter being something in which I don’t have a ton of faith – then they can enact one of those two options. However, if things go badly, as they did in 2025, then perhaps the team will need to move on. We’ll see.
Washington already has its left and right tackles of the future, assuming Laremy Tunsil can both come back from his injury and play at the same level into his mid-30s. I like Brandon Coleman at the guard position; however, Samuel Cosmi is very expensive, with cap hits of $20M through 2028. Given his talent level, though, I’d recommend that the team deal with his cap hit. That just leaves a center, which the team can and should address fairly high in the draft.
Let’s all be honest and admit that the entire running back room is average at best and needs to be rebuilt. None of the of the running backs on the roster this year seem to be capable of becoming a consistent, three-down franchise back. Certainly, they’ll need to keep one or more of these players around for awhile, probably Jacory Croskey-Merritt, but at the end of the day, Washington needs to spend a high draft pick on the right elite college running back, and keep doing it until they finally get it right. No more of these back of the draft long shots thrust into starting roles, please.
The receiver room has similar problems. It’s entire possible that Terry McLaurin has played his last down in a Washington uniform given his injury and his age. Stefon Diggs is both old and on a one-year contract. That having been said, I think both Antonio Williams and Treylon Burks may have futures as starters, so that leaves a need for only one more starter-level player. None of the rest of the receivers are ever going to be starter-level. As bad as things may seem right now, the wide receiver room is one that I don’t think the team needs to completely rebuild from scratch.
In tight end room, John Bates needs to go. His cap hit is entirely too large for someone who is limited to just being the blocking tight end. They should be able to find another one at a much lower cap hit. I think it’s fair to say that Chig Okonkwo has been a bit of disappointment so far; however, that’s in part due to his injury. He’s still young and under contract through 2028, so I recommend that the team stick with him in the rebuild.
Defense
Oh boy. This one may be tough. It’s a bit hard to make recommendations without knowing whether the next head coach will want to use a 4 – 3 or 3 – 4 system. That having been said, starting interior defensive lineman, Daron Payne and Javon Kinlaw, are both way too expensive and not productive enough. Payne’s cap hit of almost $28M is the highest on the team. It’s possible that he gets moved at the trade deadline in a couple of weeks. For his part, Kinlaw has a cap his of more than $16M, which rises to almost $17M next year. Between Payne, Kinlaw, and Tim Settle, those three players have 43 tackles so far this year, which puts them roughly in the middle of the pack in the NFL by that standard as compared to the starting defensive tackles of other teams (yes, I did look at the numbers). That’s not nearly good enough considering their cost. Adam Peters needs to rebuild the defensive line from scratch in the vision of the new coaching staff.
The inside / middle linebacker group may need less changes than another other group on the team. Sonny Styles seems to be a budding star and Jordan Magee is developing into a quality player. The team also has Leo Chenal on injured reserve and expected to return. Even Kain Medrano had a moment a few weeks ago. In the world of team roster problems, this is the least of them.
The same cannot be said for the outside linebackers / edge rushers. Washington spent a ton of money on edge rushers this year. Those moves haven’t resulted in a great increase in sacks, despite Washington being second in the NFL in blitz percentage. Something needs to change. Washington can’t easily get out of Odafe Oweh’s contract, so they are probably stuck with him but they need to spend a very high draft pick on an elite collegiate edge rusher in the next two years.
Washington’s secondary has been a disaster at times. I discussed this issue in last week’s column, so I’m not going to go over it again here. I think Washington has two decent long-term starters at corner in Trey Amos and Amik Robertson, so they don’t necessarily need to spent a high draft pick at corner, but they will need to find a slot corner and depth here. This position group is ripe for some mid-level draft picks.
The same can’t be said for the safeties. We all love Jeremy Reaves as a person, and he’s an elite special teams player, but neither of the starters at safety, either he or Nick Cross, are the future. This is another position group for which Washington needs to spend at least one starter-level draft pick, third round or higher, maybe two, in the coming couple of drafts.
Special teams
Washington has been very, very lucky to have had Tress Way for so long. By the end of the year, he’ll be the top punter in team history by almost every reasonable measure. Unfortunately, he’s indicated that he’s going to retire at the end of the year. If that happens, it’s unlikely that Washington will immediately find someone as good as Way, but they’ll need to try. Put punter down on the list of things for Peters to find.
Drew Stephens at kicker, you ask? Who knows. Washington has had exactly 1,875 kickers over the last decade or so, and he’s another one. Stephens isn’t Mark Moseley, and I have little faith that he’s going to develop into someone even close to that good.
The team might just have their kick and punt returners of the future in Jaylin Lane and Luke McCaffrey – at least to the point that the team doesn’t need to expend a ton of draft or free agency resources on these positions while they are building the other areas. Lane and McCaffrey are good enough for now.
Executive Summary
Adam Peters is staying. The coaches won’t. The roster needs significant help through draft, not free agency. Jayden Daniels is not a sure thing, yet. The offensive line is in decent shape, assuming health, except for center. The running back room needs to be totally replaced. They’ll need a couple of additions at receiver and tight end. On defense, the entire interior front needs to be rebuilt, and they need a major addition at edge rusher. The interior linebackers are good as is, for now. Washington needs at one least one corner and two safeties. Punter and kicker is a need.
What do you think? Am I on the right track here? Let me know in the comment section below.