{"id":204439,"date":"2025-10-11T05:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T05:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204439\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T05:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T05:11:07","slug":"travis-etienne-jacory-croskey-merritt-and-javonte-williams-for-real-plus-2-trades-fueling-1-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204439\/","title":{"rendered":"Travis Etienne, Jacory Croskey-Merritt and Javonte Williams for real? Plus, 2 trades fueling 1 contender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the time Samuel was acquired, McLaurin stood as the undisputed leader in the Commanders&#8217; receiver room, having logged five straight seasons of 1,000-plus yards. However, he missed time during training camp due to a <a class=\"nfl-o-cta--link nfl-o-cta--underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nfl.com\/news\/commanders-wr-terry-mclaurin-agrees-to-three-year-extension-worth-up-to-96-million\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">contract dispute<\/a>, then suffered a quad injury that has kept him out since Week 3, forcing Washington&#8217;s offense to adapt to life without McLaurin.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, Samuel has stepped up as the No. 1 option on the perimeter. So far this season, the former first-team All-Pro leads the Commanders in targets (38), receptions (30), receiving yards (300), receiving first downs (13) and receiving touchdowns (3), showcasing the rugged playing style that made him a nightmare to defend during his San Francisco heyday.<\/p>\n<p>Kingsbury has tapped into Samuel&#8217;s talents as a versatile weapon\/kick returner by getting him the ball quickly in space on various bubble screens, slip screens and swings behind the line of scrimmage. The low-risk throws not only swiftly deliver the ball to a dangerous runner&#8217;s hands, but they also enable Daniels to rack up completions to maintain his rhythm as a passer. Given how efficiently and effectively the offense has operated with Samuel slotted as WR1, the Commanders could absolutely explode when McLaurin rejoins the party, forcing opponents to deal with a raw playmaker (Samuel) and a pair of dangerous route runners (McLaurin and Ertz) at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>Throw in the speed and explosiveness brought by rookie RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt, and it&#8217;s clear the Commanders have the personnel to utilize a more balanced approach come January, should they launch another playoff run. As good as these trades appear now, we might look back on them in a few more months as the moves that truly set Washington apart from its counterparts down the stretch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the time Samuel was acquired, McLaurin stood as the undisputed leader in the Commanders&#8217; receiver room, having&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[2209,21684,49,48,1744,1721,100250,1725,48511,13682,3144,1723,514,2208,86091,81867,82,15873,1758],"class_list":["post-204439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-analysis","tag-breece-hall","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-deebo-samuel-sr","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-jacory-croskey-merritt","tag-javonte-williams","tag-laremy-tunsil","tag-new-york-jets","tag-nfl","tag-no-minute","tag-rico-dowdle","tag-scouts-notebook","tag-sports","tag-travis-etienne","tag-washington-commanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}