Daily Slop – 26 Apr 25 – Mark Bullock on Trey Amos: “A smart corner that has a strong [understanding] of match coverages”

A collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders, the NFC East, the NFL and sports in general, and a sprinkling of other stuff

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Washington Post (paywall)

Commanders take CB Trey Amos as focus shifts to defense on Day 2 of draft

GM Adam Peters says the Mississippi cornerback was in the mix for the team’s first-round pick.

That Amos was still available that late in the second round was a welcome surprise to Peters, who had options to trade the pick and collect more draft capital. Washington would have moved back had Amos and another player already been selected, Peters said.

“He was in the mix for our first-round pick, so that’s what we thought of him,” Peters said. “… We were really excited he was there.”

A one-year starter as an outside corner at Mississippi, Amos has the size (6-foot-1, 195 pounds) and speed (4.43-second 40-yard dash at the NFL combine) coveted for the position. He also has the production. Amos tied for the SEC lead in passes defended with 16 and equaled the Rebels’ team high in interceptions with three last season. A first-team all-SEC selection, Amos helped anchor a Mississippi defense that allowed 311.2 yards per game to rank 14th in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

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The Athletic (paywall)

Commanders draft CB Trey Amos: How he fits, pick grade and scouting intel

The Commanders had a passable cornerback rotation but needed more depth and size. Last season’s trade deadline deal for Lattimore didn’t pay off immediately as the four-time Pro Bowler battled lingering hamstring injuries and then struggled in the playoffs. Sainristil, a 2024 second-round pick, shone initially inside and then outside down the stretch. Igbinoghene re-signed, and Jones, the former New England Patriots veteran, joined the roster in free agency.

Lattimore is locked at one outside corner position. Amos, capable of playing press coverage, could start as a rookie if the staff moves Sainristil back to the slot. If that happens, Igbinoghene would likely move to a reserve role, which could occur if Jones takes on the starting position. In other words, the cornerback rotation will be a fun watch this summer.

Fast evaluation

Two picks and two premium positions for the Commanders. The second one surely made defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. happy, especially since general manager Adam Peters said Amos was under consideration for their first-round selection. Amos, at a minimum, provides more depth this season. Long term, he projects as a multi-year starter for a team that faces CeeDee Lamb, Malik Nabers and A.J. Brown twice a year.

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ESPN

2025 NFL draft: Mel Kiper’s winners, losers from Rounds 2-3

The Commanders absolutely had to find a Week 1 starter at outside cornerback in the draft. Marshon Lattimore has struggled to stay healthy, and the Commanders replaced Benjamin St-Juste with Noah Igbinoghene and Jonathan Jones. Neither is a lockdown cover man. Trey Amos was No. 43 on my Big Board. Washington got him at No. 61. He gets his hands on the football in coverage (three picks, 15 pass breakups last season). There’s a lot to like with this pick.

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NFL.com

2025 NFL Draft: Snap grades for all 32 teams on Day 2

Washington Commanders A-

Round 2 (No. 61): CB Trey Amos, Mississippi

Analysis:

• The Commanders did not have a third-round pick after the trades for cornerback Marshon Lattimore and left tackle Laremy Tunsil. Those are solid moves for veteran talent, even if they put pressure on the team’s Day 3 picks to provide solid depth in the future.
• Finding cornerback help was a must for Washington in this draft, so the front office must have been thrilled Amos was available late in the second round. He’s fantastic in man coverage and competes through the catch, which should allow him to start outside sooner than later.

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Commanders.com

Five things to know about Josh Conerly Jr.

He’s one of the most explosive offensive linemen in the draft.

Conerly is only 21 years old, so he has years of room to grow as an NFL player. That said, he’s already an athletic freak.

Aside from his prototypical size for an NFL tackle, Conerly is also uniquely athletic for his position. His 5.05 40-yard dash at the combine won’t impress many people, but his 10-yard split of 1.71 second was the fastest among the entire class of offensive linemen. That number would also be among the fastest among defensive tackles who ran in Indianapolis.

Then there’s his vertical jump to consider. He ranked third among all offensive linemen and second among tackles by jumping 34.5 inches. Once again, we’ll look at how that compares to other positions; he would have ranked sixth among tight ends, 10th among defensive ends and third among defensive tackles.

All of that contributed to him putting together a Relative Athletic Score (RAS) of 8.84 out of a possible 10, which ranks in the top 11% of all tackle prospects over the last 38 years.

“You look at the tape and you see what an incredible athlete he is for his size, which is backed up by a lot of his testing numbers, too,” Peters said. “But just really the way he moves. Just great feet, great lower body structure, great bend, and just super talented for a big man.”

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Bullock’s Film Room (subscription)

NFL Draft Profile: CB Trey Amos

He’s a big, long cornerback measuring in at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds with 31¼-inch arms. With that size and length, Amos gets profiled pretty quickly as a physical press corner that can line up on the line of scrimmage, jam receivers at the line and be disruptive in their releases as he sticks tight to them in man coverage. There are certainly parts of that description that fit him well. His length does give him the advantage when he does line up in press coverage and he’s certainly not afraid to be physical at the line of scrimmage when jamming receivers.

On this play against Florida, Amos is isolated to the left of the formation working against a single receiver in press coverage. That receiver wants to work inside and underneath for a quick pass on third down. However, Amos has other ideas. At the snap of the ball, the receiver initially works outside and up the field, trying to get Amos to open his hips towards the sideline so that the receiver can cut back inside of him. Amos does indeed open up towards the sideline, but as the receiver works inside, Amos uses his length to reach out and initiate contact on the receiver.

After that first punch lands, Amos closes the gap and gets his other hand on the receiver too. From there he remains very physical, adjusting his position to get back inside and prevent the receiver from running his route where he wants to go. The quarterback looks to that side off of the snap but quickly recognizes Amos has cut off the receiver and taken the route away. That forces the quarterback to look elsewhere. He can’t find anything else and ends up scrambling before being taken down for a sack.

That’s the type of rep that shows the upside Amos has due to his size and length. Being able to lock up a receiver at the line of scrimmage is the ultimate form of press coverage, but it’s pretty rare for it to turn out quite like that. So how does Amos fare when he’s not able to just lock up a receiver at the line of scrimmage while playing press? He’s still a very capable press corner but does have some things to work on.

This time Amos works in press coverage against Georgia, who have their receiver run a go route down the sideline. There’s both good and bad things to take away from this rep for Amos. For starters, Amos gets happy feet just before the snap. Ideally you want press corners to have calm, patient feet at the snap that forces receivers to declare their intentions instead. But here, you can see Amos is trying to anticipate the snap and starts moving his feet just before the snap of the ball. That means when the ball is snapped, Amos is already on his heels and shuffling backwards rather than staying patient and square to the receiver.

This movement takes Amos away from the receiver, which means he can’t extend his arms out and reach him to jam him at the line even if he wanted to. It was something I saw quite a few times from him, so it will be something he needs to improve on at the next level. Despite that, Amos does alright for most of this rep. As the receiver releases outside and tries to run by him, Amos opens up his hips and turns to run with the receiver, using his inside arm to make contact and force the receiver wider. Amos stays on top of the route and uses that arm length to drive the receiver closer to the sideline, closing the potential throwing window for the quarterback.

However, he does fall into a trap about 10 yards down the field. With the receiver pressed to the sideline, Amos decides to try and look back inside and sneak a peek at the quarterback to try and find any potential throw that might be coming. You can see his head turn back to the quarterback and as a result, he loses track of the receiver. The receiver uses that to his advantage to gain a step and run by him, but fortunately the quarterback threw the ball elsewhere.

Knowing when to look back for the ball and when not to is an important part of playing cornerback. Too often corners will look back for the ball and lose track of their receiver in the process, resulting in them giving up a pass when they initially had the route secured. Amos had no real need to look back for the football here because he had pressed the receiver to the sideline and there was no real throwing window. It’s also not like the receiver was giving him any hints that the ball might have been coming because he knew there was no window for the quarterback to throw to.

This isn’t to say it was a bad rep, there were positives in there. The length and physical coverage to stay on top of the route and force the receiver to the sideline were very good. But things like the initial footwork at the snap and knowing when to look back for the ball are things that make his press coverage a little inconsistent, despite his natural traits for it.

While his physical profile suggest press man corner, where I actually like Amos more right now is in match coverages. He seems to be a smart corner that has a strong idea of match coverages, both man-match and zone-match coverages. For those that don’t know, match coverages are coverages where the defenders are matching their assignments to the receivers as they run their routes. There are various ways of doing this but Amos appears well coached in all of them.

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Podcasts & videos

EXCLUSIVE Interview with Head Coach Dan Quinn on Draft: Day Two | 2025 NFL Draft | Command Center

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NFC East links

Blogging the Boys

Cowboys draft: First two picks are great, but show hole in overall roster building

BPA is a great strategy for the Cowboys, but it highlights why free agency is important.

Booker and Ezeiruaku will make the team significantly better and do so right away, but again running back and receiver are positions that are in sore need of help. An argument can be made there at those spots that the team barely has enough NFL-quality starters to play a game.

To be fair to the overall process, Jerry Jones did mention right after the team’s pre-draft press conference that the Cowboys had two “substantive” trades that they were working on. Maybe that is when the shoe is going to fall.

The draft is not a failure because the Cowboys did not address these positions of need with their most premium assets, but in a perfect world there is a serious lesson learned from all of this. Letting top talent fall into your lap is a wonderful strategy. Jumping at opportunities that present themselves to you is incredibly wise.

But this is why we have long said that the Cowboys have to use free agency to a serious degree. There was a literal improvement on things there this offseason, but you cannot only add surface-level players and expect the draft to line up in the proper way that you need to save you.

Maybe that is the wisdom that the team ultimately draws from how the first two rounds shook out

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NFL league links

Articles

Front Office Sports

NFL Draft Attendance in Green Bay Easily Tops Early Projections

Green Bay wasn’t expected to break any attendance records for the NFL Draft, but Thursday night’s crowd showed more appetite for the event than anticipated.

Thursday night’s Round 1 drew 205,000 fans around Lambeau Field, the league announced. That’s roughly double the population of Green Bay, and already 82% of the predraft projections of roughly 250,000 people expected to attend the event.

If the crowds on Friday night and Saturday mirror trends from previous years, Green Bay will easily blow by that 205,000 figure—and challenge for a spot in the top three most-attended drafts.

NFL Draft Round 1 Draws 13.6M Viewers, Second-Highest Ever

Per the league’s numbers, the first round averaged 13.6 million viewers—an 11% increase from last year’s 12.3 million—across television and online platforms. The draft is airing on NFL Network, ESPN, ABC, and in Spanish on ESPN Deportes.

Since first airing the draft on ESPN in 1980, the NFL Draft has become the most-watched event of its kind. The closest competitor, the NBA draft, averaged 4.4 million viewers on ABC and ESPN in 2024.

Goodell: Three NFL Games Every Christmas Moving Forward

The NFL has taken over Christmas Day in recent years, and commissioner Roger Goodell has confirmed that it will continue, no matter the day of the week.

Earlier this month at the NFL owners meetings in Palm Beach, the league confirmed its plans for three Dec. 25 games this coming season, with Netflix once again airing two, and Amazon Prime Video streaming the other as part of its Thursday Night Football package, the latter of which was first revealed last spring.

But this is the first confirmation of the NFL’s intent to make the Christmas Day tripleheader an annual occurrence, even if the league’s recent success on the holiday made it more than obvious. Last Christmas, Steelers-Chiefs and Ravens-Texans averaged 24.1 million and 24.3 million viewers, respectively, on Netflix, making them the most-streamed NFL games in U.S. history.

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Discussion topics

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Pro Football Talk

Roger Goodell wants to shorten the time between picks in the first round of the draft

Goodell told Pat McAfee on Friday that he’d like to see a shorter period of time between picks in the first round, possibly with each team getting a one-time extension that would allow them a couple more minutes if they were working out the final details of a trade.

“I started thinking last night, we’ve got to shorten it,” Goodell said. “Should we have time that you can save? I’m making it up, seven minutes first round, but you can get two minutes extra if you need it, you can call it, but then you don’t get it again the rest of the draft. You get one extension.”

Goodell said teams typically are only on the clock for about six and a half minutes in the first round and it would be better to make that uniform, with the caveat that trades can take a little bit longer.

“I think only one team went the full 10,” Goodell said. “If you’re in the middle of a trade you might want to use your card, get two minutes extra.”

Ultimately what the NFL wants the first round of the draft to be is an entertaining TV show, and if less time between picks makes for a more compelling product to watch, then less time between picks will be what the NFL does.

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The Athletic (paywall)

Why hasn’t Shedeur Sanders been drafted yet? It’s complicated

The backup dilemma

Fans love the backups and clamor for them when things aren’t going well with the starter. Quite frankly, while many teams absolutely place a priority on the backup quarterback position, it’s usually better when the player is more anonymous than not. The face of the franchise is, well, supposed to be the face of the franchise.

Sanders, the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer and Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, will have more name recognition than a chunk of the league’s current starters. He’ll also walk into an NFL facility with the unbridled support of a segment of his team’s fan base, no questions asked.

Sure, several teams can holster a backup of Sanders’ stature with minimal distractions — the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals top the list — but there are far more that can’t.

The teams with more tepid QB situations will deal with a constant barrage of questions. Every loss and every interception will invite questions about the backup quarterback. Remember, former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was asked in 2014 if it was time to bench Tom Brady for Jimmy Garoppolo. If Brady wasn’t immune then, who would be now?

By now, it’s become abundantly clear Sanders won’t join a team with a legitimate chance to be the starter. And many teams have declared, 102 picks into this draft, they aren’t comfortable drafting a backup who will invite all those questions.

Off the field

He didn’t do himself any favors by sitting out practice at the East-West Shrine Bowl. There are other things that teams have nitpicked about him off the field that may not sound like a big deal in a vacuum but add up when it comes down to projecting his ability to lead other professionals in a locker room.

Limited market

Aside from [the Titans, Giants and Saints], who was realistically looking for a starting QB? The Pittsburgh Steelers are still awaiting word from Aaron Rodgers. The Browns have all but declared they’re in a bridge year with Kenny Pickett and Joe Flacco. The Indianapolis Colts might be in no-man’s land with Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones, but they weren’t going to create a three-headed monster with an early QB pick.

Everyone else has their starter written in pen or a pretty heavy pencil.

If a team is set at the position, whether that team is considering the future of its starter or backup, the GM and head coach usually won’t invest their limited resources if it’s not necessary.

Sanders is available to everyone, but that doesn’t mean everyone has devoted hundreds of hours to Sanders.

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All aTwitter

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