The calendar demands resolution to Terry McLaurin’s hold-in. This week.
In a perfect world, McLaurin won’t like the result. Neither will the Commanders.
But if both sides are serious about winning football games instead of negotiations, they’ll get this done. It’s time to stop talking philosophically and get McLaurin back on the field, after missing OTAs, mandatory minicamp and the first two weeks of training camp.
It’s already too late for McLaurin to take part in either Wednesday’s joint practice with the Patriots in Foxboro, Mass., or Friday’s preseason opener at New England. There’s no way he could complete what Dan Quinn calls the “ramp-up” for any player returning from either injury or an extended absence in time. Quinn reiterated Monday that the Commanders won’t skip any steps, whether for McLaurin, Sam Cosmi or anyone else currently sidelined, before clearing them to return to practice and play.
“We won’t rush that,” Quinn said. “It’s too important. … We won’t shortchange that in one spot to say, ‘OK, now hustle to go.’ I think we all have seen that through the years around the league that somebody hustles back and, man, they got banged up.”
Every lost day at practice matters, to be sure, and live reps against the Patriots secondary in Wednesday’s practice would have been beneficial. But Washington’s starters aren’t likely to play a lot Friday. It’s important for players to be on the field for Washington’s offensive installs this week, but it’s not critical if they miss it.
The following weeks, though, matter significantly.
The New England game is Aug. 8. Washington will then play the Bengals at Northwest Stadium 10 days later. Three days after that, the Commanders will have a joint practice with the Ravens. Two days after that, they’ll play Baltimore in the final exhibition game on Aug. 23.
Those 14 days between the Patriots and Ravens games are the last chance for McLaurin to get live reps against opposing defenses and play with the Commanders offense in multiple practices. If he’s still out after that, there will be next to no time for a safe ramp-up and practice time before the regular-season opener against the Giants on Sept. 7. The last time McLaurin and Jayden Daniels played together was in the NFC Championship Game in January.
McLaurin has yet to get on the field with Deebo Samuel or Laremy Tunsil, key offensive newcomers. Getting in sync will be crucial. A tackle with Tunsil’s versatility can be a lead puller for McLaurin on reverses or can get out in space to help him on screens. Receivers work in tandem on pass patterns; you have to know exactly where your teammates are going to cut, how they like to come out of their patterns, how and when to cut off of their blocks on tunnel screens and the like.
This connectivity between McLaurin and the since-departed Dyami Brown and Olamide Zaccheaus, who helped spring McLaurin on his 59-yard score in the divisional playoffs in Detroit, didn’t happen overnight.
McLaurin’s argument, a fair one, is that he has been a better, more consistent receiver than DK Metcalf. He has had none of the issues that led the Seahawks to trade Metcalf to Pittsburgh, where he landed an extension at $33 million a year.
The quality of the argument, though, doesn’t matter. Washington has an analytically directed front office now, and the numbers surrounding most 30-year-old-and-up receivers aren’t in McLaurin’s favor. And he is under contract for this season. The only way he can prove he’s a top-10 receiver in the game is to actually play in games.
Vets used to get valedictory bucks in D.C. under former owner Dan Snyder. Not anymore.
The Commanders clearly want to keep McLaurin’s compensation under $30 million per year, because of his age (30 next month) and because they have some major bills to pay in the next three years. Tunsil, linebacker Frankie Luvu, center Tyler Biadasz and cornerback Marshon Lattimore — fairly important players to this team’s future — are all free agents after the 2026 season. And each will likely be looking for extensions in the final year of their existing deals, just as McLaurin is doing now.
Then, in ’27? Daniels will likely be in line to break the bank.
Terry McLaurin is out here again for autographs pic.twitter.com/F8sxQierQW
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) July 31, 2025
This is Adam Peters’ first difficult contract negotiation as the Commanders’ GM. I don’t think personal ego is at work as much as a desire to send a message to the rest of the league that there’s a line this team is not going to cross if the numbers don’t make sense.
The Commanders traded three picks last November for Lattimore and a pick, and four picks in March for Tunsil and a 2025 fourth-rounder. That’s not the play of a patient, we’re-building-slowly-through-the-draft organization. That’s “we’re all in to win right now” mode. To be sure, Daniels accelerated the franchise’s timeline significantly. Everything’s getting done at warp speed now.
But for all of that to make any sense, 17 has to be starting, and happy, at WR1.
McLaurin is the guy who takes the top off of opposing defenses regularly. If he’s not on the field, Samuel can’t do what he does best — handoffs, screens and crossing routes, all of which benefit from the space McLaurin’s presence provides. No McLaurin means eight or nine defenders in the box to smother Brian Robinson Jr. and Austin Ekeler and rookie Jacory Croskey-Merritt. It means Noah Brown isn’t operating against nickel corners or safeties. Per ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, Daniels had a QBR of 73.8 with McLaurin on the field last season; when McLaurin was off the field, that rating fell to 63.0.
No McLaurin means more pressure on the defense to win close games, rather than operating from ahead with two-score leads.
It means more losing.
So, if McLaurin has to take less than he wants, the Commanders have to offer him more than they want.
There has to be a way to get McLaurin more than the receivers the Commanders surely are comparing him to in negotiations — Tampa Bay’s Mike Evans, who got a two-year, $41 million extension in 2023 at age 30; Tennessee’s Calvin Ridley, who got four years and $92 million ($23 million per season) from the Titans in 2024 at 29; and Courtland Sutton, who just got a four-year, $92 million extension from the Broncos a couple of months before his 30th birthday.
The wide receiver market has exploded in the last two years, with Cincinnati’s Ja’Marr Chase, Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson, Dallas’ CeeDee Lamb, Metcalf and the New York Jets’ Garrett Wilson each getting monster deals. Again, this is not an available lane for McLaurin.
But redoing his current deal as part of an extension can surely bridge some of this gap. (Look, I’m not Joel Corry. It’s just an idea.)
Per Over The Cap, Washington has about $17.1 million in cap space available after its first 51 players are under contract — that includes McLaurin, who will make $15.5 million in base salary this season. Can’t the Commanders use some of that space now, bump up McLaurin’s base salary for this season by $3 or $4 million, then fully guarantee his 2026 salary at, say, $27 million or $28 million? That’s probably more than they want to give, but it would at least get McLaurin a little more than $30 million or so in guaranteed money over the next calendar year.
The Commanders could pledge to McLaurin that they won’t hit him with a franchise tag after the 2026 season, if he wants to become an unrestricted free agent and test the market. That would also give them a year to either trade for a veteran receiver or take a promising young one in the 2026 draft.
McLaurin has been all about the team since he got to town. It’s part of why he’s so beloved by so much of the fan base. So the words of Sutton, to the Denver Post, after he signed his extension last week, should resonate.
“It wasn’t about me,” Sutton said. “At the end of the day, yes, we work in a business of compensation. (There’s) talent in that locker room, guys that are coming up, that are trying to get their second contract. I was blessed to be able to get my third. They put the work in the same way as I have. And some of those guys have more accolades than I have when it comes to the NFL side of things … and to be able to sign the deal that we did, it gives us a chance to keep those guys around.”
I don’t count other people’s money. Terry McLaurin is entitled to ask for every dime he can. He is in a cold, thankless business, one that throws human beings away at the first sign of real physical defect or drop in production. The Commanders are tasked with keeping their financial books tight as long as they can.
But everybody involved here wants to win. Now. That requires both sides to give a little and take a leap of faith with one another, to give Daniels his best chance to be as good as he can.
That means getting McLaurin back on the field. Now.
(Photo: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
