Folks, the Washington Commanders have put their foot on the proverbial gas pedal.
With a roster that currently sits atop the NFC East at 7-2 led by OROY favorite and MVP candidate Jayden Daniels, general manager Adam Peters pulled the trigger at Tuesday’s NFL deadline acquiring four-time Pro Bowl corner Marshon Lattimore from the New Orleans Saints. In return, the Commanders sent 2025 third, fourth, and sixth-round picks to New Orleans in exchange for Lattimore and a 2025 fifth-round selection. While the third they sent was rumored to be the pick Washington acquired when they sent Jahan Dotson to the Philadelphia Eagles this summer, it is their own pick that is now in the hands of New Orleans. The pick is a few spots higher.
The big-picture storyline holds a massive amount of more weight than the details of the third, as Lattimore becomes Washington’s clear CB1 on the outside.
Marshon Lattimore immediately becomes Washington’s most talented corner since the days of DeAngelo Hall in the 2010s & all the way back to Shawn Springs, Fred Smoot and Champ Bailey in the early 2000s.
— Ryan Fowler (@_RyanFowler_) November 5, 2024
Immediate upgrade at the position & Joe Whitt now has his alpha at corner.
As much as the secondary in Washington and its lack of talent had been talked about prior to the trade, the Commanders left Week 9 as a top-five secondary when it came to limiting teams’ aerial attack. A depth chart that used to showcase Benjamin St-Juste as the top outside defender will now slot him on the opposite side of Lattimore with Noah Igbinoghene representing the team's third outside defender. In turn, rookie day-two pick Mike Sainrisitl, who’s continued to flash in his first NFL campaign, will likely slide back into his natural home in the slot after playing inside-out in spurts over the first nine games. Sainristil has played well on the perimeter, but he is clearly Washington’s top nickel.
It leaves defensive coordinator Joe Whitt in a much more comfortable spot, where he now has a corner in Lattimore that can erase opposing teams’ top targets from a progression. And for St-Juste, who deserves credit for battling his tail off despite ugly underlying analytics, I expect him to enjoy success as he’ll now likely be asked to defend teams’ WR2s. He’s long, competitive, and is someone whose experience in the scheme will help as Lattimore adjusts.
The former first-rounder out of Ohio State’s addition will also allow Whitt to remain unique and creative in his alignments, coverages, and blitz packages. More trust in your corners means more man pressure, and while Whitt hasn’t shied away from sending extra bodies this fall (28.9% blitz rate ranks ninth in football), he simply hasn’t had a talent to deploy at the level of Lattimore to shut down a George Pickens, DeVonta Smith, AJ Brown, or CeeDee Lamb type—each of whom Washington will see in the coming weeks.
Lattimore’s addition is both for the now and future in Washington. He’s still just 28 years old, is an athlete that immediately raises the performance ceiling of the defense, and in whole, showcases where Peters and head coach Dan Quinn believe this team is at with Week 10 on the horizon. Washington, in year one of a re-tooling, has inherently accelerated their timeline as much as anyone in football and looks every bit of a threat among the elites in the NFC with Lattimore now added to the fold.
