Wide receiver Terry McLaurin likes what he’s been hearing and seeing from new Commanders offensive coordinator David Blough.
Shortly after Blough was promoted into the job this year, he said one of his plans is to get McLaurin 10 targets a week in the passing game. On Tuesday, McLaurin said that he’s heard the same from the coach and that he’s seen the team putting the words into action since they started their offseason program.
“I love that. You know, he told me that way back in February,” McLaurin said, via JP Finlay of NBC “He texted me that him and I have a really good relationship. He’s been a man of his word. My job is to prove that each and every day, when we’re having workouts to be the leader, to be someone who you can count on to be on the field and make plays. That’s all I’ve been asking for. That’s all I want. So, to win games and have a big part of that, so I was definitely smiling when I saw that come across the phone. From OTAs and stuff, I can definitely tell that’s gonna be part of it.”
McLaurin went on to say that he thinks playing a featured role will also help open up opportunities for others in the offense. There has been chatter that the team will add wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk to that group, but any alignment is going to have McLaurin in the top role as the Commanders try to bounce back this season.
Commanders Clips
The Commanders and Ravens are both set for joint practices with multiple teams this summer.
The Vikings announced that they will be working with the Ravens ahead of their preseason game in Minnesota on Monday and the Ravens announced that they’ll also be working out with the Commanders a short time later.
That session will take place at the Ravens’ facility on August 26. The two teams will wrap up the preseason with a game in Baltimore two days later.
While the Commanders will be making the short trip to work with the Ravens, they’ll be the hosts when the Dolphins come to town earlier in the month. Nicki Jhabvala of TheAthletic.com reported that they will practice with the Dolphins before their August 14 game.
NFL Network lost its schedule-release show. It’s nevertheless gaining a late-season Saturday doubleheader.
In Week 16, on the day after Christmas, NFLN will televise a game at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:00 p.m. ET.
The schedule identifies four potential games for the two slots: Buccaneers-Falcons, Bengals-Colts, Commanders-Vikings, and Panthers Steelers.
The decision as to which games will slide from Sunday to Saturday will be made during the season.
Coupled with a Thursday night game and three Christmas Day games, Week 16 will have 10 total windows — one more than Thanksgiving week. That leaves only eight games to be played on the Saturday afternoon windows.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
Von Miller said in March that he would love to return to the Broncos if he did not re-sign with the Commanders and that prospect came up with the Broncos’ current pass-rushing ace.
Miller was a 2011 first-round pick for the Broncos and he won a Super Bowl while making four All-Pro teams before being traded to the Rams in 2021. He remains a free agent and Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto said that the notion of a second stint with the Broncos is something that would be met with smiles in Denver.
“It would be pretty crazy, for sure,” Bonitto said, via Zac Stevens of DNVR. “Obviously, everybody would love that. Not only the fans but the players. He’s a guy that’s loved here in Denver so much. My personal favorite player ever to watch. Just being able to share a room with him would be amazing.”
Miller had nine sacks for the Commanders last season, but it’s unclear if the musings of the two players are matched by concrete interest from the Broncos in a reunion.
Four quarterbacks will be featured on the third season of the Netflix series Quarterback.
The streaming service announced on Wednesday that Cam Ward, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, and Joe Flacco will be featured on this edition of the show. The show will chronicle the quarterbacks’ experiences during the 2025 season and will premiere on July 14.
Each quarterback’s storyline should have some interesting moments. Ward went through his rookie season with the Titans after being selected with the first pick of the draft while Daniels’s much-anticipated second season with the Commanders was wiped out by injuries. Mayfield thrived early in the year, but he and the Buccaneers struggled later in a year that ended without a playoff berth. Flacco opened the season as the starter for the Browns, but was traded to the Bengals to fill in for the injured Joe Burrow.
Burrow Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Patrick Mahomes, and Marcus Mariota were featured on the first two seasons of the show.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
The Commanders are bringing back cornerback Antonio Hamilton.
The team announced that they have re-signed Hamilton on Monday morning. No terms of the deal were disclosed.
Hamilton appeared in 15 games and made one start for the Commanders last year. He had 18 tackles, two passes defensed and a fumble recovery.
Hamilton has also played for the Falcons, Cardinals, Chiefs, Giants and Raiders. He has 197 tackles, two interceptions, 27 passes defensed, and two fumble recoveries over the course of his career.
Trey Amos, Mike Sainristil, Amik Robertson, and Ahkello Witherspoon are at the top of the cornerback depth chart in Washington.
Commanders linebacker Sonny Styles, the seventh overall pick in the draft, most recently wore No. 0 at Ohio State. With cornerback Mike Sainristil wearing that number in Washington, Styles needed something new.
He explained his decision to embrace No. 52 in a Friday session with reporters.
“I’m not really a big number guy,” Styles said. “Like, I wasn’t really big into single digits. I like zero. Mikey has zero. So then, like, I was telling [linebackers] coach [Ken Norton] like when I look in the room [with] London on the wall, London Fletcher, LaVar [Arrington]. I think it was Ken Harvey and Monte Coleman. It was all like 50 numbers. And I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m gonna pick a 50 number.’ And I was thinking about it. You know, I remember growing up watching like Patrick Willis, Ray Lewis. So like, hey, 52 would be cool. And then my dad was like, ‘Hey, five plus two is seven, so that’s your draft pick.’ So I was like, man, that’s cool. It seems pretty cool. So that’s really how I landed on it.”
Given the proximity to Baltimore, Commanders fans will be hoping that Styles performs like Ray Lewis did in his Hall of Fame career with the Ravens.
The NFL will announce the full 2026 schedule on Thursday, May 14, but the league’s international slate of games will be revealed earlier than the domestic ones.
The matchups for this year’s international games will be announced on NFL Network at 9 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday.
Nine international games are on the docket this year, but the matchups for two of them have already been announced. The 49ers and Rams will meet up in Melbourne in Week 1 and the Cowboys will face the Ravens in Rio in Week 3.
One team in each of the other seven games is already known. The Jaguars will play in London twice and the Commanders will be involved in the city’s third game. The 49ers will be in Mexico City, the Falcons will be in Madrid, the Lions will be in Munich and the Saints will take part in the NFL’s first game in Paris.
