Insightful look at the Commanders 2025 Safety room including breakout player and potential offseason backfire

Will Harris

The Commanders let strong safety Jeremy Chinn go to the Las Vegas Raiders in free agency, and they replaced him with Will Harris. Not a lot of people were familiar with Harris' game, and questioned if the move was smart by Adam Peters. Chinn really set the tone on defense, but lacked some of the pass coverage that the Commanders needed.

Harris should provide a boost to the coverage side of the secondary, and he can still lay the hammer in the open field. Harris playing well will calm a lot of nerves and answer a lot of remaining unknowns.

Depth in the Safety room

Behind Martin and Harris, there are more questions and unknowns, but there's one thing we can expect, and that's more Jeremy Reaves on defense . Reaves hasn't been much of a factor on defense, but he has been an All-Pro special teams player. The Commanders extended Reaves this offseason for another year, and Quinn has alluded many times that Reaves has earned more playing time on defense. He had a massive tackle in open space against the New England Patriots in the preseason that showed that he's ready for a bigger role.

Percy Butler was also extended this season, and Reaves will probably take some of his defensive snaps, but he's still a big part of the special teams unit. Butler had the 13th most special teams tackles in the league with nine, and they need him to do that again this season, with the effort looking poor in the preseason.

Butler isn't the only depth piece with a major role on special teams, and Tyler Owens made a case for the Commanders to keep five safeties. Owens is one of the more athletic players for the Commanders, but he was a raw prospect coming out of college who is starting to develop now. He might not have a role on defense yet, but Owens was fifth in the league in special teams tackles with 10. The duo of Butler and Owens is extremely underrated when it comes to what they bring on special teams.

There are a lot of unknowns in the safety room behind Martin, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt to be an improved group with the addition of Harris and the development of the depth pieces behind them. The Commanders' defense has to help out Jayden Daniels this season to have a real shot at the Super Bowl.