The Commanders had their now annual pre-draft top-30 visit at TopGolf on Tuesday.
Nicki Jhabvala of TheAthletic.com reports that Arvell Reese, David Bailey, Caleb Downs, Sonny Styles, Carnell Tate, Jeremiyah Love, Rueben Bain, Mansoor Delane and Makai Lemon were among the 20 prospects participating in the event.
It marks the third consecutive year the Commanders have brought in prospects to compete against each other at TopGolf.
They selected Jayden Daniels with the second overall pick in 2024 and offensive lineman Josh Conerly with the 29th overall pick last year.
The Commanders have the seventh overall pick next week.
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Cornerback Mansoor Delane has a handful of pre-draft visits planned for the coming days.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Delane is slated to meet with the Bengals, Ravens and Commanders before the window to visit teams closes this week. Delane also spent time with the Dolphins and Giants recently.
Delane is bidding to be the top cornerback selected this year. He spent the 2025 season at LSU after playing at Virginia Tech and was an All-American during his lone season in Baton Rouge. He had 45 tackles and two interceptions for the Tigers.
Avieon Terrell and Jermod McCoy are also at the top of the list of cornerback prospects this year.
Wide receiver Chris Brazzell is wrapping up the pre-draft visit window with a busy week.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Brazzell is set to visit with the Packers, Commanders and 49ers ahead of next week’s draft. Brazzell also spent time with the Panthers, Colts and Cardinals last week.
Brazzell spent two years at Tulane before wrapping up his time in college with two seasons at Tennessee. He had 74 catches over his first three seasons and then posted 62 catches for 1,017 yards and nine touchdowns with the Volunteers last season.
That production has put him in play as an early-round pick and he’ll find out just where he’ll be starting his NFL career in a little over a week.
A report in February indicated that tight end Zach Ertz wants to play in 2026 and Ertz has confirmed that his plan is to return for a 14th NFL season.
Ertz tore his ACL while playing for the Commanders in the 13th game of his 13th season, so there was good reason to wonder if he’s played his final NFL snap. The free agent is rehabbing with an eye on being able to get on the field in training camp because he doesn’t want the injury to be the final chapter of his playing career.
“I don’t want it to be the last play that I have,” Ertz said, via Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Even talking to people now, and they do it out of the goodness of their heart, and [they say], ‘Man, that injury was tough.’ When people think of my career and that last play, I don’t want that to be the conversation starter. And so, for me, it’s just doing everything I can to get back to my best because I felt like I was playing really good football before I got hurt.”
Ertz will need to find a team that believes he can get back to that level of football and said he has “eyes wide open” to the realities of needing to prove he is both healthy and productive. Given his history on both fronts, it seems like a good bet that someone will take a chance on adding Ertz to their offense in the coming months.
The Commanders signed outside linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson to a one-year, $11 million deal this offseason. He was one of the top edge rushers on the free agent market after a breakout 2025 season.
“It’s huge, man. It’s huge,” Chaisson told Bryan Colbert, via the team’s YouTube channel. “Obviously coming off a phenomenal year, man. Didn’t get a chance to seal the deal like I wanted to, but a lot of things have been moving in the right trajectory of my career. Getting a chance to be a part of this, and continue the rebuilding phase, but honestly, I’d say put the final touches on something that has already been progressing.
“I want to continue to be that guy, to be that missing piece that can send us in the right trajectory. . . . I think it’s everything and more for my career and for this team for sure.”
Chaisson, 26, played a career-high 639 snaps, a career-high 10 starts, a career-high 7.5 sacks and a career-high 18 quarterback hits.
“You’ve got to decide to block me all four quarters, and that’s my favorite part about it,” Chaisson said. “I’m willing to take it to a fifth quarter if it has to go there. I like that part about it. I never quit; I can go all day long. The mindset and the energy that I play with, it’s now or never for me.”
Gabe Taylor was six when his brother, Sean, died at 24. Now 24, Gabe Taylor is a day away from playing his first home game as a member of the D.C. Defenders.
Via Todd Archer of ESPN, the younger brother of Washington great Sean Taylor plays defensive back for the local UFL team. Like Sean did, Gabe Taylor wears No. 21.
Gabe didn’t play football until his senior year in high school. He had 11 interceptions and six pick-sixes in his only season at Gulliver Prep in Miami, where the field is now named for Sean Taylor.
After playing college football at Rice, Gabe Taylor wasn’t drafted in 2025. He had a tryout at the Commanders’ rookie minicamp, but there were no NFL offers.
Enter the UFL.
“I’ll tell you this, if he was two inches taller, he wouldn’t be playing in our league right now, for sure,” Defenders coach Shannon Harris told Archer. “He’d definitely be playing in the NFL. But Gabe, man, the kid is very smart. You can see the football pedigree there. He’s another guy that flies around. He’s sticky in coverage. He does a great job getting his hands on the ball, lot of pass deflections.”
Last week, Gabe Taylor sealed a win over the Columbus Aviators with an interception.
“This is everything to me,” Gabe Taylor told Archer. “It’s definitely a reminder, especially with the Taylor name on the top. I can’t just half-ass everything. So it’s definitely a reminder, I have to put my best foot forward because I can mess up and people be like, ‘Oh, you suck,’ just like that. I can make everybody smile by making plays and then give it one play and it’s like, ‘Oh, this kid can’t play.’ So it’s like, this means everything. The legacy I feel like I have to carry, but it’s definitely a reminder, it’s bigger than football.”
And, frankly, this is the kind of story the UFL needs, if it hopes to become bigger than it currently is. For D.C. fans on Saturday, the home debut of Sean Taylor’s brother will make it a very big game at Audi Field.
Defensive end Charles Omenihu signed with the Commanders as a free agent this offseason, but he spent the last three seasons with the Chiefs and that gave him experience in trying to stop two of the league’s top quarterbacks.
Omenihu was asked to weigh in on facing Bills quarterback Josh Allen and Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. He didn’t hesitate before saying he thought Allen would win a Super Bowl first if the two players switched teams and that Allen’s habit of turning the ball over isn’t enough of a drawback to make up for the book that defenses have put together on stopping Jackson.
“I don’t think the league has truly figured [Allen] out,” Omenihu said on the Speakeasy podcast. “With Lamar, honestly, you bring a five-man rush on him and collapse that pocket, he’s drifting backwards and, unfortunately, he might make a play that isn’t going to be the best play for the Ravens. With Josh, he’s going to drift backwards, run around, and he’s so hard to tackle. He’s a large human being, hard to get down, he can make every throw. Every throw from no matter where he’s at. His arm strength is unbelievable. I don’t think Lamar has that big amount of arm strength like Josh does. Like I said, I think you’ve figured out Lamar. You come after him, you close all the lanes, you five-man rush him and you cover his guys, and I think you get it done. It’s been shown.”
Neither Alllen nor Jackson has made it to the Super Bowl yet, but the Bills and Ravens are currently the betting favorites to be the AFC Champion so that could change at the end of the 2026 season. If it does, the quarterback left standing will have a big leg up in the legacy building battle.
The Commanders have a meeting set with one of the top wide receivers in this year’s draft.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that former Indiana wideout Omar Cooper will visit with the team. Cooper has also spent time with a number of teams, including the Panthers and Cowboys, and is expected to meet with a handful of others before the widow for pre-draft visits comes to an end.
Cooper had 69 catches for 937 yards and 13 touchdowns during the Hoosiers’ national championship run.
With Zach Ertz and Deebo Samuel still unsigned for 2026, Terry McLaurin is the top returning receiver in Washington. They signed Van Jefferson and Dyami Brown to go with Treylon Burks, Luke McCaffrey, and Jaylin Lane.
Kirk Cousins had multiple reasons to sign with the Raiders. Some substantive, at least one superficial.
“Best jerseys in pro sports I think,” Cousins told the team’s website on Monday. “I remember being in warm-ups once playing the Raiders and our head coach looked at me and said, ‘Those have to be the best jerseys that they are in pro sports.’ And I said, ‘You know what Coach, I have to agree. Those are really sharp.’”
Cousins didn’t specify the team for which he was playing at the time. He has a 3-0 career record as a starter against the Raiders — one with each of his three prior teams.
In 2017, Cousins and Washington beat the Raiders, 27-10. In 2019, Cousins at the Vikings beat the Raiders, 34-14. In 2024, Cousins and the Falcons beat the Raiders, 15-9.
Despite getting the victory in Las Vegas on a Monday night in December 2024, Cousins was benched the next day for then-rookie Michael Penix Jr. Cousins didn’t play again that season.
Now, he’s on track to start for the Raiders in Week 1, unless the Raiders don’t make quarterback Fernando Mendoza the first pick in the 2026 draft and unless Mendoza wins the job right out of the games.
As to his observation about the silver and black jerseys (along with the rest of the uniform), it’s hard to argue. There’s a reason the Raiders’ look has resisted becoming Nikefied in the 14 years since the company took over the apparel deal from Reebok, when change for the sake of change swept through the league.
While the team has needed a fix that so far remains elusive, there’s nothing broken about the Raiders’ uniforms. They’re simple and classic. And they’ve never felt compelled to embrace numbers that look different from the standard football-jersey numbers that were once nearly universal in the NFL.
The Commanders have hired a new coach.
Washington announced on Tuesday that the club has brought in John Glenn to be assistant special teams coordinator.
Glenn is back with the Commanders after spending last season as Raiders linebackers coach under former head coach Pete Carroll. He had been with Carroll for most of the coach’s tenure with Seattle, serving as linebackers coach from 2018-2023.
Glenn was the Commanders’ assistant special teams coach in 2024 before reuniting with Carroll in 2025.
