Terry McLaurin has agreed to a three-year extension with the Commanders, providing further evidence that with contract disputes nowadays, it’s generally best to simply ignore them.
Per reports, the revised contract includes three additional years at $96 million. (The structure isn’t yet available, but there could be some funny money involved, with the team potentially able to walk away after a few years.)
There never should have been any doubt this deal would get done, with Washington being a contender and not having enough at wide receiver to play without him. And McLaurin probably would not have had the fortitude to skip some of his 18 regular-season paychecks.
I am kicking myself now for slightly downgrading McLaurin last night in the revised version of the rankings. I should have stuck to my guns. (Always easier, of course, when giving advice to others rather than making personnel decisions for your own team – I flinched about 40 picks into a 12-team draft a few weeks ago, skipping McLaurin in the fourth round to settle for safer Courtland Sutton instead.)
While adjusting our projections this morning, I noticed a glitch that caused Tyson Bagent to rise up into the top 35 among quarterbacks (I keyed in a number incorrectly). While I was in patching Bagent’s number, I also re-worked the Commanders, with McLaurin moving up slightly and a slight decline for Zach Ertz. The updated version of the stat projections has been loaded to the site.
McLaurin caught 13 touchdowns last year, 2nd-most in the league, and I like the way he works with Jayden Daniels.
McLaurin has never been used much around the goal line, making him a modest scorer. But that changed last year with Daniels and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury. They went to McLaurin 8 times when they were inside the 10-yard line, and he caught all of those targets, including 7 TDs. In his first five seasons combined, McLaurin caught only 10 passes in the 10-yard line, including only 4 TDs.
| McLAURIN INSIDE THE 10 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Team | Tgt | No | Yds | TD |
| 2019 | Wash. | 7 | 3 | 11 | 1 |
| 2020 | Wash. | 4 | 2 | 6 | 1 |
| 2021 | Wash. | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Wash. | 3 | 3 | 14 | 1 |
| 2023 | Wash. | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| 2024 | Wash. | 8 | 8 | 38 | 7 |
Four other changes that have recently occurred that will have to wait until the Thursday product:
• The Texans indicate Joe Mixon will being the season on the Non-Football Injury List, requiring him to miss the first four weeks of the season. Nick Chubb will be their starter. I’m not a big Chubb fan, with him having the huge knee injury two years ago, but I will concede he was running hard in his one preseason appearance.
• NFL Media reports that Jakobi Meyers has asked to be traded. I believe this is related more to his contract rather than his role in the offense. He’s entering the final year of his contract, with a base salary of $10.5 million. (I don’t think he’s going anywhere).
• Mike McDaniel says Jason Sanders won’t available at the start of the season because of an unspecified injury. Dolphins will be adding a new kicker.
• Carolina released Matthew Wright. That leaves them for now with Ryan Fitzgerald as their kicker, but we’ll see.
—Ian Allan