ASHBURN, VA — As has been the case for weeks, there was no Terry McLaurin on the practice field for the Washington Commanders on Sunday. Also, no Noah Brown — and no certainty about when or if quarterback Jayden Daniels is going to have his full intended clip of wideouts when the NFL season opens.
For now, Daniels has Deebo Samuel — along with lurking questions about what kind of practice time he’s going to need with McLaurin and Brown to be ready and in rhythm for Week 1 against the New York Giants.
His answer Sunday was as opaque as his wide receiver depth chart: “I control what I can control.”
Barring Daniels injecting himself directly into someone else’s situation — which has never been known to be his persona — the answers to Washington’s remaining business with its wideouts must come from somewhere else. Where it concerns Brown, his consistent and healthy return to practice will be the only testimony that really matters.
But McLaurin and his continued hold-in over a stalemated contract extension?
Let’s put it like this: Things are not hopeless. But they’re definitely not good, either.
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That was the undercurrent of the situation Sunday, with the Commanders firmly tucked into their negotiating trench on one side, and McLaurin and his agent firmly on the other. Right now, those trenches are not close. It's to the point that it’s fair to consider that this standoff is capable of making it all the way to the first week of the regular season without McLaurin stepping foot onto the practice field.
That reality at some point will raise the question of whether or not Washington will entertain some kind of trade for a player who is both a captain and clearly the team’s No. 1 wideout. Right now, that seems like an unlikely scenario for two reasons: First, Washington does not want to take McLaurin away from Daniels as the coaching staff and front office wants him to remain a part of the organization's fabric moving forward; and second, there aren’t a wealth of teams in a hurry to pay McLaurin the extension he wants.
How far apart are the two sides? Everyone is keeping the numbers tight, but the details seep out in the contract comparables. On one side, it’s the four-year, $132 million extension the Pittsburgh Steelers slotted to DK Metcalf this offseason, which included $60 million guaranteed. The other side is a little more tricky, but consider it a slightly richer version of the the four-year $92 million extension reached between Courtland Sutton and the Denver Broncos, which had $41 million in guarantees.
It’s not perfect apples to apples, but it gives you an idea of the divide between McLaurin and the Commanders. The key difference in the Metcalf and Sutton deals, aside from the significant divide in guaranteed money and annual average salary ($33 million AAV vs. $23 million AAV), is the fact that Metcalf signed his at 27 years old and with a Steelers team that was extremely (maybe desperately) motivated to keep him for a long period. Conversely, the Broncos did a risk-averse deal with a soon-to-be 30-year-old Sutton, who is at the horizon of his prime years.
One guy is young and still has production-versus-age metrics on his side. The other doesn’t.
With McLaurin turning 30 in less than a month, he falls into the riskier category. The Commanders know it. The rest of the league knows it. And it’s evidenced by this: Of all the wide receivers in league history who have signed contracts earning more than $23 million annually, only two were 30 years old (or turning 30) in the same year they got their deals: Tyreek Hill in 2024 with the Miami Dolphins ($30 million AAV) and Davante Adams ($28 million) with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022. Both had also been multiple time first-team All-Pros prior to that deal, too.
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None of that is to say McLaurin isn’t one of the best wideouts in the league, nor undercut the reality that he was a cornerstone of Daniels’ coming-out party in 2024. But it showcases why there’s a divide here. The receivers who have gotten paid Metcalf-type money in recent years have either been in the midst of their prime or 30-something unicorns who were deep into Hall of Fame-caliber careers.
If McLaurin was in either of those categories right now, the Commanders would have been inundated with trade calls about him from teams willing to pay him a Metcalf-level extension. To date, there’s no evidence that has occurred. That reality has left the Commanders dug in on their side of the ledger and McLaurin into his. In between them is Daniels, who is going to need some kind of resolution with the top of his wide receiver depth chart if Washington is going to hit the ground running and compete with the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFC East crown next season.
This is where the hope comes in. If the divide is the Commanders sitting around $25 million per season and $45+ million in guaranteed money — which I believe is in the ballpark — versus the Metcalf numbers at $33 million and $60 million in guarantees, the space between them is $8 million in annual salary and $15 million in guarantees. That’s really not close, but from what I understand, it’s far better than the first volley of negotiations between the two sides, which was so steeply divided that it seemed there was almost no chance of an extension being reached. That means the two sides are already at least incrementally closer than where they first began … and that’s some progress that can continue to a point.
But with the NFL season a month out, the next two weeks are also going to be crucial dealmaking territory. With McLaurin having missed so much time on the field, his ramp-up process if/when he returns is likely going to take a few weeks before he gets to the point of having no restrictions. Anything more aggressive risks potential injury, and the last thing the Commanders could afford in 2025 is reaching a deal with McLaurin and then having him crash out with a major injury (See: the San Francisco 49ers and Brandon Aiyuk last season).
For Daniels, it means there’s a clock ticking on the Commanders’ early-season chemistry. Unfortunately, it’s one of the few football-related clocks that he can’t control.
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