Commanders Free Agent Fits: Center

Taking a look at some centers that the Washington Commanders could potentially target in free agency

Surprising news broke from the Washington Commanders late last week. The team has decided to release starting center Tyler Biadasz. Biadasz was one of the big free agent signings in the first year of the Adam Peters and Dan Quinn regime. He signed a three-year, $30 million deal to follow Quinn from Dallas to Washington and immediately settled in as a key component of the offense line. He had an outstanding 2024 season and looked like one of the best free agent signings in Washington in years.

But a year later, the Commanders are now moving on. Biadasz did have a drop off in performance in 2025, but so did just about everyone on the team, coaches included. I didn’t think it was a hugely poor season from Biadasz and I certainly anticipated him being back in 2026, so this is a shocking move to me. It’s not a salary cap related move based on how much they’d actually save by cutting him, and Biadasz is reportedly healthy so it’s not injury related either. So it can only be a decision made on his performance.

Personally, I don’t really agree with the move. The offensive line was one of the few strengths of the team last year and it was looking like the majority of the unit would be returning to keep some continuity up front. Cutting Biadasz creates yet another hole on this Commanders roster that the team now needs to fill. I’m not sure they’d want to put a rookie center in there, so it’s likely that the Commanders will be pursuing an option in free agency.

So who are the options out there? Fortunately, it’s a relatively good year to need a center as there’s a fair few decent ones out there. But if we’re taking Biadasz as the baseline and assuming they want to upgrade from that, I don’t think there’s that many out there better than him. This could be quite costly, but there are still a few options.

High Profile: Tyler Linderbaum, Ravens, 25

Linderbaum could make an argument for being the top available free agent on the market, not just the best center. It’s not very often a premier offensive lineman hits the open market, and it’s entirely possible the Ravens manage to get him re-signed before he does hit the market. But the situation for Baltimore is tricky. They don’t want to franchise tag him because the franchise tag for offensive lineman isn’t specific to position. There’s not a separate tag for offensive tackles, who typically get paid a lot more than interior lineman. That means if they were to tag Linderbaum, he’d cost them $23 million for the year and that would be the starting point in any long term contract negotiations.

Linderbaum is an excellent center, but the Ravens don’t want to be resetting the center market. The highest paid center right now is Creed Humphrey of the Chiefs, who gets about $18 million per year on average. Paying Linderbaum $23 million would be a huge jump, so you can understand why the Ravens don’t want to tag him. But given the desperate need for quality offensive lineman around the NFL, and Linderbaum being one of the top centers in the league with the potential to stay at that level for 10 years given his age, he may well hit that number on the open market anyway.

I think Linderbaum’s agent would be wise to get him to the open market and see what offers come in. But what I will say, at this point last year it looked like the Ravens were going to lose star left tackle Ronnie Stanley to free agency before they essentially locked him and his agent in a room for the weekend before free agency and thrashed out a deal to prevent him from hitting the market. So the Ravens have history of getting things done, but I think Linderbaum’s agent will try his best to make him available.

So, let’s assume he’s available. What exactly would Linderbaum bring to a new team? For starters, he’s an excellent athlete for the center position. He’s listed at 6-foot-2, 305 pounds which is a little bit undersized for a typical NFL offensive lineman, but thanks to that smaller frame, he’s a lot more athletic than most interior offensive lineman. That means in the run game, he can reach blocks that not many other interior lineman can make.

Here we see the Ravens running a wide zone scheme to their right. The Lions place their nose tackle on the inside shoulder of the right guard in what’s known as a 2i technique. On a zone scheme, Linderbaum would typically be asked to work a combination block with the right guard on that defensive tackle, with the right guard doing a bulk of the initial work while the center works across the gap to help secure the inside of the block. But Linderbaum is athletic enough that he not only gets across to the block quickly, he works across the face of the defender and gets to the play side of him. That enables Linderbaum to turn his body and seal the defender on the back side of the run.

Yes, he gets some help from the right guard, but this is an incredible block from Linderbaum. To not only reach that block, but to get play side and seal it off on the back side of the run is outstanding. You can see these types of blocks made by really athletic tackles on the back side of runs, but it’s very rare to see it by a center on the front side of a run. By getting to that play side, Linderbaum can seal off the nose tackle on the back side of the play, creating a huge split in the defense. Unfortunately, the right tackle fails to maintain his block and that limits this run, but it was still an exceptional block from Linderbaum.

Linderbaum would be an excellent fit for any team looking to run plenty of zone scheme. I would think any Kyle Shanahan tree coach would absolutely love him, but he’ll have more admirers than just that coaching tree.

In the passing game, Linderbaum stands out despite his slightly smaller frame. He’s a very smart player, which you need at center to ensure blitzes are being identified and picked up correctly. You can see that frequently whenever you watch the Ravens in obvious passing situations.

On this play against the Rams, the Ravens see a very aggressive blitz look from the Rams defense. The Rams have seven defenders lined up on the line of scrimmage, suggesting a big blitz is coming. As the center, Linderbaum needs to have studied the blitz looks all week and be ready for them in the game so that he can identify them and know where any potential blitz is coming from. The Rams show four defenders to the right side of the offensive line, trying to force the line to slide that way so that the Ravens will be overloaded to the left, where three of the actual four rushers are coming from.

Linderbaum picks up on this though and at the snap, he immediately slides to his left, knowing that this is all a bluff and the real threat is the three from the left. As he slides, he finds Rams defensive tackle Kobie Turner stunting all the way to the right side of the line. Linderbaum shows his athletic ability to quickly change direction and mirror Turner as he stunts to the other side of the line. Once Turner gets to a certain point, Linderbaum passes him over to the right guard and understands that with defenders dropping off from the right side, there’s likely pressure coming from the left.

He shows off his athleticism again as he slides back to the left and identifies a stunt from the remaining two rushers on that side. Linebacker Byron Young stunts inside and nearly beats the left guard, but Linderbaum is quick enough to get back across and pick up the block, making it look comfortable in the end. He gets himself in front of Young and absorbs the contact before using his momentum against him to wash him down the line and out of the play.

He’s clearly a smart and athletic lineman, but often you see those guys struggle a bit in pass protection due to their slightly undersized frame. That is not Linderbaum. He is someone that can hold his own in pass protection.

This is another strong rep from Linderbaum from that same Rams game. The Rams run a simulated pressure this time, blitzing safety Quentin Lake from the left side of the offensive line while the edge defender on the right side drops off to replace Lake in coverage. Before we get to the block Linderbaum makes, let’s first appreciate the intelligence again. As soon as the ball is snapped, you can see Linderbaum immediately reach out to his left guard to make him aware of the blitzing safety. He taps his arm and points to the safety, telling the guard to slide outside and pick him up, all while he’s sliding to his right and preparing himself to take on Kobie Turner, one of the Rams best interior pass rushers.

After ensuring the blitz gets picked up, Linderbaum goes to work against Turner. Turner is stunting inside as part of the pressure, trying to drag blockers inside with him to free up the path for the blitzing safety. But once he’s left one-on-one with Linderbaum, he goes into pass rush mode. Linderbaum attempts to fire his hands and get them on Turner’s chest, but Turner counters by getting closer and attempting a hump move, where he gets his right arm under Linderbaum’s left armpit in order to find leverage to shove him aside and beat him. This was a signature move for long time Commanders defensive tackle Jonathan Allen.

Linderbaum feels the hump move coming and quickly replaces his left arm to counter it. Instead of allowing Turner to get under his armpit, you can actually see that Linderbaum gets his left hand under Turner’s right armpit, preventing him from completing the move. With this leverage, Linderbaum stalls out the rush and forces Turner to try other moves. Turner starts to shift his weight and try to work back to the right side of the line, but Linderbaum maintains his leverage and keeps his feet moving quickly to mirror him and stay in front, negating the rush entirely.

Linderbaum is clearly one of top centers in the NFL and at only 25, he has the potential to be good value for not just one long term contract, but two. Locking down the center position with one of the best in the NFL for the next five to 10 years is mighty appealing to every team in the league, not just one with an exciting young quarterback like Jayden Daniels. It might take a contract in that $23 million per year range to get a deal done given the interest that Linderbaum will have around the league.

Given the Commanders already have one of the top guard contracts in the NFL in Sam Cosmi and they’re about to extend Laremy Tunsil and make him probably the top paid left tackle in the league at somewhere near $30 million per year, I’m not sure they will want to go all out for Linderbaum at near $23 million per year. That’s a lot to invest in the offensive line. That being said, if we’ve learned one thing about Adam Peters, it’s that he values protecting Jayden Daniels. He’s given out a big contract to Sam Cosmi, he’s traded picks and is about to pay Laremy Tunsil, he invested a first round pick in Josh Conerly Jr. and a third round pick in Brandon Coleman. He also went out and signed Tyler Biadasz as one of his first free agent signings in 2024. So offensive line investment is something he’s not afraid of doing.

I do think this one is unlikely. Linderbaum will have a lot of other teams interested. The Giants are one of the favorites for him given John Harbaugh was Linderbaum’s head coach in Baltimore and has just been hired by the Giants this offseason. We also know the Harbaugh brothers do like to share a lot, so Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers figure to be strong players for him too. As I mentioned, any Shanahan-tree coach would love him, so the 49ers, Packers, and now Raiders could all be big players for him. That’s a lot of competition to beat out. But if the Commanders are serious about upgrading from Biadasz, maybe this is the move to make.

Good Value: Connor McGovern, Bills, 28

Perhaps a more realistic option for the Commanders would be Connor McGovern. McGovern actually started his career with the Cowboys and spent time there while Dan Quinn was the defensive coordinator, so Quinn will have some familiarity with him. But McGovern mostly played guard and when he left Dallas for Buffalo in 2023, he signed with the Bills to be their starting left guard. However, when Mitch Morse became a cap casualty, McGovern shifted inside to center and made the position his own.

McGovern is another athletic center with the ability to cover a lot of ground in the run game. The Bills lean more into gap scheme runs, which make use of that athleticism by having him pull to the edge, which most center’s aren’t capable of doing. But he’s scheme diverse too. When the Bills did run zone, McGovern showed off his athleticism in that scheme too.