Javon Kinlaw gave what might be the soundbite of the offseason when asked about the Washington Commanders' defensive front. The phrasing might have been a little too colorful, but he isn't wrong.
"We got some motherf-----s now," Kinlaw said at the end of Washington's OTA practice last week. "Excuse my language."
Curse words aside, Kinlaw is correct; the Commanders do have some...depth up front heading into 2026 after struggling to stop the run and rush the passer last season. General manager Adam Peters spent much of the team's resources in free agency to fix the position, and the combination of additions like Odafe Oweh and K'Lavon Chaisson with several injured players now healthy should help them at least improve both areas. Those pieces still need to prove they can work together, but there's plenty of confidence coming from the group based on what they have shown so far.
"You look all across the board, you got talent top to bottom, man," said newly-acquired defensive end Charles Omenihu.
The Commanders have been quiet about their plans for the defense led by former Minnesota Vikings defensive backs coach and pass game coordinator Daronte Jones. It's assumed that he will take concepts from Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who likes to create confusion at the line of scrimmage to manufacture pressure and sacks. The Vikings were one of the best teams at that last season, tying for fourth in sacks and leading the league in pass rush win rate. Sixteen players on the Vikings' defense generated at least a half-sack, with three of their top sack producers being defensive tackles.
The Commanders feel like they at least have the depth to replicate some of that success. Kinlaw, with some more colorful language, listed several players who have a history of rushing passers, including Oweh and Chaisson as well as the likes of Daron Payne, Johnny Newton, Omenihu, defensive tackle Tim Settle Jr. and Deatrich Wise Jr.
"We've got a full house here, man," Kinlaw said. "It's been super exciting just being around these guys. It's a dog room, and it's all about dog working. These guys, they work they're tails off."
Of the new players up front, Oweh and Chaisson are expected to lead the pack, not just because of the money the Commanders invested in them, but because they have a track record of being pass rushers the Commanders haven't had on the edge in recent seasons. They generated nearly twice as many pressures as any other Commanders player last season and had a combined 20.5 sacks in the regular season and playoffs. Oweh had the 10th-best pass rush win rate for edge rushers, while Chaisson hit career-highs in sacks and quarterbacks hits in 2025.
Their presence up front is part of the reason why ESPN's Ben Solak ranked the Commanders' edge rushers among the 10 best positional upgrades in the NFL.
"They have a deep group with different body types and much more juice than last season," Solak wrote. "Good work."
The Commanders' defensive front is not worried about who gets more looks or is the perceived "leaders" in the room, partially because they know they are all going to get plenty of work. Omenihu described the system as "D-line friendly" and said it allows them to get one-on-one blocks in the run game. For the interior players, concepts like stunts and picks come naturally, which could be credited to how much pressure is normally brought in Flores' defense. The Vikings led the league in blitz percentage last season with a hurry rate of 9.5%. The Vikings generated pressures on 28.1% of blitzes, which ranked third in the NFL.
And like Kinlaw, Omenihu heaped praise on the Commanders' talent up front.
"You got a lot of pieces up here," Omenihu said. "When you look back there and you look around, you feel very confident about it."
The higher level of talent has also brought more competition. That's the way Omenihu and the rest of the Commanders' defensive line wants it.
"The standard is, 'We all gotta eat,'" Omenihu said. "We all gotta be dogs, so when you have that, you can never let small details slide, and the guy next to you won't allow it to slide. It just elevates your game. When you have all those together in a unit, everybody looks good."
The results at this point in the offseason have, in fact, been good, according to Kinlaw. He said the group looked "damn fast" during last Wednesday's practice, which should please Peters and head coach Dan Quinn since that was one of their offseason goals.
"It's good to see these guys working their tails off, for sure," Kinlaw said.
The Commanders might have finished the 2025 season in the top 15 in terms of sacks generated, but they struggled to put consistent pressure on quarterbacks and gave them more time to throw than almost any group in the league. That leaves a bad taste in Kinlaw and the rest of the defensive line's mouths, but they aren't changing their approach or their intensity in practice. They're all still working as hard as they can to improve the numbers they had last season.
And now, it looks like they have the tools to do it.
"What I see is the same hungry group," Kinlaw said. "I think we did a good job of controlling our heart, and it's boiling over to this year."
