The Washington Commanders might have a plan all of us don’t see yet. One that justifies swapping out one of the NFL’s most consistent defensive tackles for an underperforming one.
Until then, the criticism of the Commanders signing free agent defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw to a 3-year, $45 million contract while letting Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jonathan Allen walk out the door and sign a similar deal with the Minnesota Vikings has been unrelenting.
The latest blow came from Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport, who ranked the Kinlaw contract as the No. 2 worst NFL free agent deal in 2025, citing Peters’ possible motivation to prove he was right on Kinlaw when the 49ers drafted him with the No. 14 overall pick in 2020 when Peters was San Francisco’s vice president of player personnel.
“Kinlaw did set a career-high in sacks with 4.5 last year in New York, but the 27-year-old has just 9.5 sacks in his career and has never had more than 40 tackles in a season,” Davenport wrote on April 14. “It’s like Peters is hell-bent on showing that San Francisco wasn’t wrong when they drafted Kinlaw. The real kick in the teeth? The contract that Allen (a much more accomplished player) signed with the Vikings was for just $2 million more a season with similar guarantees. Yikes.”
Extensive Blowback on Kinlaw’s $45M Contract
Over the Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald gave the Commanders an “F” grade for the Kinlaw deal, which includes $30 million in guaranteed money.
“Most contracts in the NFL have some level of justification…this does not,” Fitzgerald wrote. “The Jets signing Kinlaw at $7.5M was a bad one last year and this just blows that away. 3 years, $45 million with $30 million full at signing. Insane. Teams that do stuff like this because they have cap room often wind up a mess in a year or two because the cap room is gone and they wonder why they have some of these contracts on the books. On paper this is the worst signing of the early free agency period.”
Kinlaw represents a considerable downgrade in terms of performance from Allen who signed a 3-year, $60 million contract with the Vikings after he was released by the Commanders. Kinlaw played 14 games as a rookie but only played 10 games, total, over the next 2 seasons due to injuries and didn’t play all 17 games until his fourth season in 2023.
In his lone season with the New York Jets in 2024, Kinlaw had his version of a breakout season by starting all 17 games for the first time with career highs of 40 tackles and 4.5 sacks — still not numbers that jump off the page.
Commanders Already Stacked at Defensive Tackle
Adding even more curiosity to the Commanders and Peters’ decision to sign Kinlaw is that it’s a position where the team already appears set with veteran Daron Payne and 2024 second round pick Jer’Zhan Newton.
One of the biggest weaknesses on the roster in 2024 in terms of finances was defensive tackle, where Payne and Allen were playing on contracts worth a combined $162 million — so one of them had to go.
Bringing in a high priced free agent wasn’t the problem, spending it on a defensive tackle and not an edge rusher is.
