What WR Jaylin Lane brings to the Washington Commanders

Breaking down what the Commanders are getting from their 4th round pick

The Washington Commanders selected Virginia Tech wide receiver Jaylin Lane with their fourth round pick in the 2025 NFL draft. At the combine, Lane measured in at 5-foot-10, 191 pounds and then had a performance to remember in the athletic testing drills. He caught everyone's attention with his 4.34 40-yard dash time and his 1.5 second 10-yard split, but he also had impressive numbers in other drills too. He jump 40-inches in the vertical jump and 11-feet in the broad jump, while his 6.75 second three-cone drill time was the fourth fastest of any player at the combine.

Now those testing numbers are only guidelines that need to be crosschecked with the film to see if it transfers to the football field. With Lane, it does. It backs up what you see on tape, which is an explosive athlete with great short area quickness and terrific long speed. At his size, he profiles as someone more likely to work from the slot than outside, but that speed works anywhere and everywhere.

This play is a good example of Lane’s speed and deep threat ability. He lines up in the slot to the right and runs right down the middle of the field. The defense drops back into zone coverage but the deep safety is just slightly late to react to Lane. Lane runs his route to look like a deep over route, which makes the safety think he’s fine where he’s at, but Lane suddenly takes off down the middle of the field. By that point, with Lane’s speed and acceleration, the safety has no chance to flip his hips and run with him. Lane runs away from the safety and into the wide open field.

This is where we see Lane’s ability to track the ball down the field. Having speed is great, but if you can’t track the ball down the field while running at speed, then it’s useless. When the quarterback releases the throw, Lane is in the middle of the field. He turns and locates the ball in the air and does a great job adjusting his path as he tracks the trajectory of the throw. He follows the ball all the way out to the numbers and makes the tracking look easy as he runs underneath the pass smoothly on his way to a 66-yard touchdown pass.

That speed is great for vertical routes down the field and the ball tracking makes him a real deep threat, but the speed plays elsewhere too.

On this play, Lane lines up stacked behind another receiver to the left of the formation. The defense has one safety rotated over the top of Lane while the other is in the middle of the field. Prior to the snap, Lane is sent in motion across the formation to the right side of the field. Instead of having a single defender try to run with Lane, the defense rotates the safeties. The one over Lane initially sinks back to the deep middle while the one in the deep middle rotates down to cover Lane, trying to maintain their leverage advantage.

However, as Lane completes his motion, the ball is snapped and Lane uses the momentum of his motion to work out into a wheel route. That motion gives him a good head of steam to burst down the field and the safety, despite rotating and supposedly having a leverage advantage, can’t keep up. Lane speeds by the safety down the sideline on his wheel route, but the quarterback feels some pressure and opts against the throw.

It’s not just speed that Lane has either, he has great short area quickness, meaning he can make sharp cuts and change direction at speed.

Here we can see Lane running what’s often referred to as a “Seattle” sail route. A sail concept is a three-level flood concept with an outside receiver running deep to attack the deep part of the field, a running back or tight end working to the flat to occupy the underneath part of the field and a third receiver, typically a slot receiver or tight end, running the sail route to attack the intermediate part of the field in between the other two routes. It’s good against zone defenses because typically zone defenses only have a defender guarding deep and a defender guarding the flat, leaving the intermediate part open. The Seattle variation of a sail route sees the slot receiver initially run his route like he’s running a deep over route, crossing the middle of the field, before sharply cutting back outside.

Lane does a nice job setting up this route. He builds up speed quickly and starts angling his path inside towards the middle of the field. He’s nearing his top speed as he gets to the hashmarks in the middle of the field, which is when he suddenly puts on the breaks and makes a sharp cut to work back outside. The defender in coverage has no chance of staying with him, having to stop his feet and flip his hips back outside. Lane creates yards of separation as he breaks outside, but unfortunately the throw is late and behind him, allowing the defender to recover somewhat. Lane still makes the catch but is unable to gain any additional yards after the catch because of the bad throw.

That ability to make sharp cuts and win with quickness should become a huge asset for Lane at the next level, especially working out of the slot. Quick slot receivers can be a huge threat over the middle of the field on things like choice routes where their quickness can see them beat a less athletic defender and run open over the middle of the field.