The Washington Commanders open their 2026 preseason Friday night against the Miami Dolphins at Northwest Stadium, and the three weeks of training camp that led up to it have told a story of both promise and peril. A team that reached the NFC Championship Game in Dan Quinn’s first season, then crashed to 5-12 a year later, spent the offseason retooling on both sides of the ball, only to be hit with a season-altering injury to its best offensive lineman just days before kickoff.
Washington’s 2025 collapse wasn’t for lack of talent — it was largely about health and turnovers. The Commanders started 3-2 before injuries piled up, and Jayden Daniels ultimately missed 10 games. Washington finished with the eighth-most difficult strength of schedule projected for 2026, and went just 2-7 against teams with a winning record a year ago. The front office responded with an aggressive rebuild: a reported $159 million in guaranteed free-agent money and first-year coordinators installed on both sides of the ball.
On offense, the team brought in running back Rachaad White, tight end Chig Okonkwo, and re-signed receiver Treylon Burks, while also locking up left tackle Laremy Tunsil with a contract extension. New offensive coordinator David Blough took over play-calling from Kliff Kingsbury with a mandate to create more explosive plays through under-center play-action and zone-run concepts. Washington also added receiver depth throughout camp and drafted Clemson wide receiver Antonio Williams in the third round and Penn State’s all-time leading rusher, running back Kaytron Allen, in the sixth round.
The biggest offensive addition, though, came well after camp had already started. On Aug. 5, Washington signed veteran wide receiver Stefon Diggs to a one-year contract worth up to $12 million, ending a long free-agent wait that had stretched back to March. Diggs, an 11-year NFL veteran who has topped 1,000 receiving yards in seven of his last eight seasons, grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., and had committed to the University of Maryland out of high school before starting his pro career. He officially signed and practiced with the team for the first time on Aug. 7, telling reporters he was ready to “put on for” his home city. The Commanders waived offensive lineman Tyler Cooper to create roster space for him. The move immediately resolved what had been one of camp’s bigger open questions: with Deebo Samuel re-signing with San Francisco instead of joining Washington, and free-agent target Brandon Aiyuk going elsewhere, the Commanders were staring at a receiver room behind Terry McLaurin that consisted mostly of unproven or complementary pieces. Diggs now slots in as the presumptive No. 2 option opposite McLaurin.
The bigger investment went to a defense that ranked in the bottom six of the league in multiple categories a year ago, including dead last in total yards allowed. Washington added pass rusher Odafe Oweh in free agency and used the No. 7 overall pick in the draft on an Ohio State linebacker, handing the unit over to first-time defensive coordinator Daronte Jones, who spent one season as LSU’s DC before making the jump to the NFL.
Camp opened July 29 in Ashburn with what reporters described as strong early sessions for the offense — Daniels looked “in command from start to finish” in an early practice, connecting well with Terry McLaurin as the two worked to rebuild their rhythm after McLaurin’s own offseason contract situation the year before. McLaurin, entering his eighth season, is coming off an injury-shortened 2025 that produced career lows of 582 yards and three touchdowns, and remains Washington’s unquestioned top target. With Diggs now in the fold, the questions about who fills the No. 2 role behind him have shifted from “who” to “how well” and “how quickly” a receiver who didn’t join the team until the second week of camp can get in sync with Daniels.
Then, on Aug. 8, the outlook shifted again, this time for the worse. Tunsil suffered a torn triceps during a one-on-one pass-rush drill against Oweh, immediately taking a knee and being escorted off the practice field. He’ll need surgery and is expected to miss most, if not all, of the 2026 season. Quinn confirmed the news the following Monday, calling Tunsil “an absolutely fantastic teammate” who will be missed, while the team waits on a recovery timetable pending the procedure. Washington will turn to third-year lineman Brandon Coleman at left tackle, keeping 2025 first-round pick Josh Conerly Jr. at right tackle rather than shuffling him back to his college position on the left side. Coleman started 12 games at left tackle as a rookie and has experience there, but replacing arguably the roster’s best pound-for-pound player is no small swap for a line protecting a quarterback the franchise is building around.
Elsewhere on the injury front, cornerback Trey Amos — who fractured his fibula last November and was arguably Washington’s top corner before getting hurt — dealt with soft-tissue issues this offseason and an ankle problem this week that kept him out of Wednesday’s joint practice with Miami; Quinn said the team should have a clearer recovery picture in the coming days. Center Nick Allegretti, the favorite to start after battling Julian Good-Jones for the job, also sat out the joint practice and Friday’s game but is expected back Sunday, while defensive end Dorance Armstrong — recovering from a torn ACL — and tight end John Bates have both been seen working back into the mix on the side of practice. Washington also swapped punters, signing veteran Matt Haack after longtime punter Tress Way went down with a pectoral injury.
Camp’s third week carried extra weight because it’s the first chance for Washington to line up against an opponent that isn’t itself. With several starters, including Diggs among others, getting maintenance days, younger players got an outsized share of the reps, and a few of them made the most of it. Wide receiver Antonio Williams, buried on the depth chart behind Washington’s veteran targets, caught multiple touchdowns in practice, including scores from both Marcus Mariota and Athan Kaliakmanis. In the tight end room, where the Commanders are sorting out whether to keep three or four players, Lawrence Cager hauled in two touchdowns from Mariota and Colson Yankoff kept building his case for a roster spot with a string of athletic catches — the kind of camp performance that could make him a fourth tight end and special-teams contributor even if the top three spots are effectively locked up. On defense, rookie pass rusher Joshua Josephs continued to stand out for his quickness off the edge, nearly forcing a sack on a red-zone rep against Coleman before Daniels got a pass off to Chig Okonkwo.
The roster continued to churn, too: Washington signed defensive tackle Byron Cowart, a former fifth-round pick with 51 career games and 21 starts, while releasing guard Sala Aumavae-Laulu and safety Rob McDaniel. Quinn has been candid that the churn at the bottom of the roster is by design — the more competition, the better the picture by cutdown day.
Washington’s three-game preseason slate runs through Aug. 28: the Commanders open at home against Miami on Friday, then travel to face the Detroit Lions on Aug. 22 and close out at Baltimore on Aug. 28, with a second joint-practice week at the Ravens’ facility beforehand.
Here’s the honest snapshot as of this week: oddsmakers have Washington’s win total set right at the middle of the pack. FanDuel currently has the Commanders’ projected win total at 7.5 for 2026, and BetMGM has it at the same number, essentially a coin flip between over and under. But that line was set before the Tunsil injury, and the public models that have updated since are less kind. ESPN’s Mike Clay is now projecting Washington for just 6.4 wins and the NFL’s 30th-ranked defense in 2026 — a projection that explicitly accounts for the loss of Tunsil. Washington also still carries real long-term optimism in Daniels, who finished seventh in MVP voting and won Offensive Rookie of the Year in his debut season, and remains the single biggest swing factor for how far this team goes, now with a genuine second weapon in Diggs to throw to.
Put those pieces together, and the picture is a team with a talented, ascending quarterback, a newly credible one-two punch at receiver, and a defense that’s been retooled on paper but hasn’t proven anything yet — now trying to do it after losing its best offensive lineman before the games even start to count. Add a schedule that ranks among the eight toughest in the league and a division that includes a defending-champion Eagles team and a Giants squad now under longtime Ravens coach John Harbaugh, and this doesn’t look like a team built for a smooth ride back to the playoffs.
Prediction, based on where things stand today: Washington is a fringe wild-card team — not a pretender, but not the NFC Championship-caliber squad it looked like two years ago, either. Somewhere in the 8-9 to 9-8 range feels right right now, with the season likely to hinge on a few things that are still genuinely unknown: how much the Coleman-at-left-tackle experiment costs Daniels in the pocket, how quickly Diggs and Daniels build chemistry after such a late start together, and whether Daronte Jones’ defense can actually climb out of the bottom third of the league in year one. Those questions will start getting real answers Friday night, and this outlook should be treated as a first snapshot, not a final word. A strong showing over the next three preseason games, a healthy Amos, quick Diggs-Daniels chemistry, or a smoother-than-expected transition at left tackle could push this team back toward the 10-win range the roster’s talent level still suggests is possible.
