What CB Trey Amos brings to the Washington Commanders

Breaking down what the Commanders are getting from their 2nd round pick

The Washington Commanders selected Ole Miss cornerback Trey Amos with their second round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. He represents terrific value at pick 61, given he was in legitimate contention to be selected in the first round with the Commanders selection at pick 29. So what are the Commanders getting from their second round pick? Let’s take a closer look.

Amos profiles as an extremely well-rounded cornerback with upside in a variety of different schemes. He measured in at the combine at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds with 31¼-inch arms. That’s a big, long cornerback which the NFL desires more and more. With that size and length, Amos is capable of lining up in press and being disruptive at the line of scrimmage while playing man coverage.

On this third down play, Florida looks to isolate its top receiver against Amos to the left of the formation. The receiver looks to run a quick slant route to get inside of Amos and pick up an easy first down conversion. However, Amos walks up to the line of scrimmage in press coverage and shows off the upside he has in press. At the snap, Amos the length and physicality you love to see from a press corner. The receiver initially works outside while Amos positions himself with inside leverage. Amos does open his hips to the sideline to give himself the ability to turn and run with the receiver if he needs to, but he maintains his inside leverage.

That inside leverage is critical as the receiver sticks his foot in the ground and attempts to cut back inside towards the middle of the field. Amos is then able to use his length to reach out with his inside arm and make contact as the receiver tries to get inside. Once he makes contact, Amos is able to shift his position to cut off the path inside, getting physical and blocking off the receiver.

The receiver attempts to recover by working over the top of Amos, but he’s able to stay engaged and maintain his physical jam to prevent the receiver getting inside. The quarterback wants to work to his top receiver on the slant, but Amos takes him away. That forces the quarterback to look elsewhere, but as he attempts to do that, pressure arrives and he’s brought down for a sack.

Not every rep of press coverage from Amos was like this, of course, but it shows the upside he has in that part of his game. His size, length and physicality enables him to compete at the line of scrimmage with just about every type of receiver profile and he can be very disruptive while doing so. I think he does need some work on his technique and staying patient with his feet at the line of scrimmage when playing press man coverage, but the potential is clearly there.

At Ole Miss, Amos also showed he could play a style of coverage that Commanders head coach Dan Quinn is particularly familiar with.

On this play, Ole Miss play a Cover-3 defense, which consists of three deep zone defenders and four underneath zone defenders. As an outside corner, Amos is responsible for the deep outside third on his part of the field. However, instead of just sitting off and sinking back into his zone, Amos plays press coverage up at the line of scrimmage. This is exactly the style that Dan Quinn and the famous Seattle Seahawks Cover-3 defense used. Their variation of Cover-3 asked the corners to play physical press coverage instead of just sinking back into their zones straight away.

We can see Amos playing that technique well here. Georgia runs a play-action pass and at the snap, you can see the coverage rotation to a Cover-3. One safety drops down to cover the flat and make four underneath zones while the other safety rotates to the deep middle of the field. Amos is responsible for the deep third, but stays in press coverage with his receiver, knowing there’s no real threat to his zone elsewhere at this point in time. As the receiver declares his release inside, Amos gets physical, using his length to get his hands on the receiver and disrupt their path by forcing them further inside.

Amos runs comfortably down the field with the receiver, staying on top of the route while constantly jabbing the receiver with his hand to force him further inside and prevent him from breaking away. As the receiver breaks off his route, Amos is right there to contest it, with an underneath zone defender also sinking back under it. The quarterback knows that route is dead pretty early and looks elsewhere.

Dan Quinn admitted after his time in Atlanta that teams couldn't just play that style of Cover-3 all game any more, and so he switched up his schemes when he became the defensive coordinator in Dallas. But he does still use Cover-3 regularly, so this type of technique for Amos will be useful in Washington. What Quinn shifted to in Dallas was playing more man coverage. We’ve already seen the potential of Amos in press man coverage, but Quinn also had his corners play off-man coverage in Dallas too. He used the likes of Trevon Diggs and Daron Bland, two corners with great ball skills, to play off the line of scrimmage and with vision to break on quick routes underneath. Amos is capable of doing the same thing.