Antonio Williams 2026 Season Preview — what we know, and what nobody does | Muffed

Washington handed Jayden Daniels a third-round route-runner in April; July drafts price him at pick one seventy-four — less a scouting opinion than a bet the slot role stays small. The room says maybe not.

The record: third round, pick seventy-one, out of Clemson, per the Commanders' announcement — a four-year starter who left with over two thousand career receiving yards, per the team's draft coverage. The spring reporting, per SI's coverage of Dan Quinn's comments in late May, has Washington working him mostly from the slot, and the beat notes say the route polish caught Daniels' attention, per Riggo's Rag in June.

[[SITUATION]]

The situation: Washington's target hierarchy is unsettled, and the verified numbers say why. Terry McLaurin played ten games last season — five hundred eighty-two yards — and the offense belongs to David Blough now, promoted in January after the Kingsbury exit, per ESPN. New play-caller, a rehabbing number one, an open slot job: a real opening, with real uncertainty stacked on it.

[pause] Which is exactly where we refuse to fake precision: rookie slot receivers in first-year offenses are among the least predictable assets in football — we checked whether the inputs here predict anything, and they don't at a standard we'd cite. Pick one seventy-four buys a lottery ticket with good handwriting on it. The data starts in September.

Watch: whether he holds the starting slot job through camp against Luke McCaffrey and Jaylin Lane, and McLaurin's health — the whole tree re-sorts around it. [[CLOSE]] He's one of your guys? This show covers your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.