Lynnell Willingham: Commanders roster seriously lacks depth at WR

The Washington Commanders – like every other team around the NFL – cut their roster down to 53 players on Tuesday and Lynnell Willingham said there were really "no surprises" in the cuts first-year GM Adam Peters made to head coach Dan Quinn's roster.

When examining the initial squad 11 days before Washington travels to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1, Willingham was not impressed.

"I just look at the roster and there's just so many holes," he said on The Chris Russell Show on Wednesday. "And I don't think I looked at it like that initially. I don't know if I was drunk off of Jayden Daniels hype..."

To which, Russell interjected: "Yes, I think you were."

"But damn," Willingham continued. "They're not very good. And I keep going back to the same three problem spots that are like massive issues.

"Wide receiver, if Terry McLaurin goes down... behind him, if it wasn't for Jamison Crowder and his 29 career touchdowns, behind those two guys you have nothing at wide receiver!.. nothing established."

Russell ever so slightly pushed back on the claim of nothing by pointing out that Olamide Zaccheaus, entering his sixth career season, has 10 receiving touchdowns and 1,492 career yards on 104 receptions and has "had some success" as a third WR.

"They're redundant [at the position], they don't have size and I don't know if these dudes can get open against other DBs that aren't our sorry-ass DBs," Willingham said. "That's the question. I know [offensive coordinator] Kliff [Kingsbury] is gonna scheme guys open and the running game is gonna be a big part of it, maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm overreacting to wide receiver because I said it earlier in the spring that it wouldn't shock me if the second leading receiver on the team wasn't a wide receiver it was a running back or a tight end."

Bottom line, Russell added, Washington has to be "counting on a huge breakout year" from fourth-year WR Dyami Brown, with all of three touchdowns and 476 yards on 62 catches in his first 47 career games since he was selected with the 82nd overall pick (Round 3).

Willingham said the hope is that by late October, Luke McCaffrey, a 2024 third-round pick (100th overall), to have established himself as a contributor.

"They are really banking on those two guys and I don't know if they are bad bets," Willingham said.