The trade Commanders tried to make after Jayden Daniels pick

On Saturday morning, just hours after selecting LSU’s Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Jayden Daniels with the 2nd overall pick in the NFL Draft, Washington Commanders general manager Adam Peters sat on stage next to Daniels in front of a room full of reporters and touted Jayden Daniels as both a special player and a special person who was the number one prospect on the Commanders draft board.

So it makes perfect sense that in the days following the completion of the 1st Round of the NFL Draft, we’d come to find out that the Commanders worked hard to find a way back into the 1st Round in order to select a stud offensive tackle to help keep their prized franchise quarterback upright during his rookie season and beyond.

“Four offensive tackles going in the first 14 picks didn’t surprise anyone, either. Just ask the Washington Commanders, whose general manager, Adam Peters, was working the phones after selecting quarterback Jayden Daniels at No. 2, looking at creative ways to reach back into the first round for a tackle. That ultimately didn’t happen. The teams that selected tackles Joe Alt (Chargers, No. 5), JC Latham (Titans, No. 7), Olu Fashanu (Jets, No. 11) and Taliese Fuaga (Saints, No. 14) long had been linked to the position,” writes ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler.

Finding a way to revamp the offensive line was one of the top priorities for the Commanders this offseason. Washington gave up 65 sacks last year, the second-highest total in the league during the 2023 NFL season. It was the fifth consecutive year in which Washington finished in the bottom ten in sacks allowed.

To address this clear need, Adam Peters made moves in free agency — signing center Tyler Biadasz and guard Nick Allegretti while also re-signing swing tackle Cornelius Lucas — in addition to selecting Brandon Coleman out of TCU in the 3rd Round of the NFL Draft. While Peters suggests that Coleman will play tackle for the Commanders, most scouts seem to believe that he would be a better fit at guard in the NFL, though he did gain a significant amount of experience playing both positions while in college.

But with that said, it’s understandable why Adam Peters, in his first draft for the Commanders, was eager to find a bluechip offensive tackle to protect Jayden Daniels. While Fowler didn’t note what sort of draft capital Peters was willing to part with in order to get back into the 1st Round, the Commanders did have five day two picks at their disposal, as well as all of their 2025 NFL Draft picks except for their 7th rounder.

Perhaps the Commanders are trying to prevent what happened to Robert Griffin III, the last quarterback that Washington took in the 1st Round of the NFL Draft — also with the 2nd overall pick — from happening to Jayden Daniels. Griffin suffered a torn LCL and ACL during Washington’s Wild Card Round loss to the Seattle Seahawks during his rookie season, forever changing the trajectory of what looked to be an incredibly promising career. Because of Daniels’ slight frame and his willingness to run, one of the primary concerns about his NFL future has been how he’ll be able to hold up over the course of the long NFL season. Keeping him upright in the pocket as much as possible would be a good place to start.