Commanders Training Camp Round Up: Joint Practice with Patriots

Rounding up the various reports from the Commanders joint practice with the Patriots

The Washington Commanders held a joint practice with the Patriots in New England on Wednesday ahead of their preseason opener on Friday. Joint practices are always a good way for teams to break up the monotony of training camp and practicing against the same players over and over again. It provides a true test of where players are at against different competition. Unfortunately, the Patriots didn’t live stream the practice so I’ve not been able to find much footage of it, but there were still lots of reports from both the Commanders and Patriots beat writers. So let’s round up what went on.

1. Jayden Daniels looked sharp

The top takeaway from all the practice reports and tweets that I could see was that Commanders second year quarterback looked sharp throughout practice. Commanders team writer Zach Selby tweeted that on the opening drive of the full team period, Daniels went three for three with two passes to tight end Zach Ertz. That connection of Daniels to Ertz was strong last year and multiple reports throughout camp suggest it’s only gotten stronger. Selby went on to call that connection a “cheat code”.

But it wasn’t just the Commanders writers that took notice. Ben Volin of the Boston Globe tweeted that Daniels was “absolutely surgical” in 11-on-11 drills and that he “never misses a read”. Fox Sports writer Henry McKenna also noticed the Daniels to Ertz connection, tweeting that Daniels found Ertz plenty of times over the middle without Terry McLaurin available.

The narrative around the Patriots and Commanders practice and indeed preseason game in the offseason was Daniels against Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, who of course was picked on pick after Daniels in the 2024 draft. There was plenty of talk from the Patriots reporters about comparing Maye to Daniels and Maye was even asked about it, but I think that there was almost no noise about that comparison from the Commanders side tells you what you need to know. The Commanders know they made the right choice with Daniels, his rookie year speaks for itself. They aren’t worried about other quarterbacks or comparing player A to player B, they’re focusing on themselves and getting better, which is great to see.

2. Wide receivers struggle without McLaurin

Terry McLaurin didn’t travel with the team up to New England as he’s still on the PUP list. But his absence was felt greater in this practice it seems. It should be stated that Noah Brown also didn’t make it to New England as he’s also dealing with a small injury and being managed, so the Commanders were down two of their top three wide receivers. Multiple reporters on both the Commanders and Patriots beats noted that the Commanders were lacking at receiver without McLaurin.

ESPN’s John Keim explained that without McLaurin and Brown, the starting offense relied on three primary targets: Zach Ertz, Deebo Samuel and Austin Ekeler. The other receivers failed to make much of an impression it seems. Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic noted that the lack of receiver depth is concerning and that is perhaps McLaurin’s best form of leverage in contract negotiations right now.

That’s obviously a concern, but the positive here is that the Commanders were still pretty successful on offense. We already heard that Daniels was on point and his connection with Ertz was strong. Fox Sports writer Henry McKenna tweeted that Daniels also found Deebo Samuel for an impressive touchdown catch in seven-on-sevens, which the Commanders later tweeted out a clip of.

On McLaurin, there’s no updates yet at the time of writing on his contract. There’s been a ton of speculation about what money he’s looking for, what the team is willing to pay but it’s hard to decipher exactly what is real and what is just speculation. McLaurin has basically played all of his leverage cards now, bar sitting out of regular season games. His absence in this practice might be the most effective form of leverage yet, so perhaps that moves the needle a bit and helps get something done soon.

3. Laremy Tunsil as good as advertised