Commanders' glaring bye week problem is uglier than anyone expected

Do you remember when the Washington Commanders fielded a defensive line featuring four first-round picks? It was supposed to be the foundation of a dominant defense that would carry the team to championships. For a variety of reasons we won't rehash right now, that didn’t really work out. Under Adam Peters’ leadership, it seems the current Commanders are trying a kind of bargain-rate version of that strategy in the defensive backfield. True, it hasn't applied to all the starters, and the team has opted for second-rounders instead of firsts, but you can still see the vague outlines of the plan. Three recent second-round draft picks — safety Quan Martin, chosen by Ron Rivera in 2023, and cornerbacks Mike Sainristil (2024) and Trey Amos (2025), selected by Peters — supposedly form the core of a new and improved secondary. The only problem is that, at least for this season, the plan has yielded even worse results than the first-round defensive line approach did from 2021 to 2023. Diagnosing just what has gone wr