The 2026 NFL Draft is officially in the books, and while free agency never truly sleeps, the heavy lifting is done. That means it's time to take a hard look at how all 32 rosters stack up—and the Washington Commanders are facing some tough questions.

The Athletic's Austin Mock recently released his analytics-based post-draft roster rankings, using a projection model that calculates each team's expected margin of victory (xMOV) against an average NFL roster. The results place Washington at No. 22, with an xMOV of -1.3—meaning the model expects them to be slightly below average.

Mock's model assigns a game-impact projection to every player, weighing positional value heavily. For context, a quarterback like Josh Allen is worth far more to his team than even the best running back like Bijan Robinson. It's this logic that drives the rankings, and it's not kind to the Commanders.

"I was low on the Commanders heading into last season, and I'm low on them again this year," Mock wrote. "My model is not a fan of their wide receivers room, and the offensive line grades out as average."

The bigger concern, however, is on defense. "I don't know what there is to like about this group," Mock added. "The defensive line is below average, and the cornerbacks group is one of the worst in football. Yes, rookie linebacker Sonny Styles should provide immediate help, but I'm not sure he'll be enough to make this unit better than 25th or so in the league."

But before you write off the Commanders entirely, there's a flip side to this story. While Mock is fair to question the defense, he might be underselling the offensive line. Yes, Washington moved on from center Tyler Biadasz, but that decision was driven by a noticeable decline in his play last season. Laremy Tunsil remains one of the NFL's premier offensive linemen, Sam Cosmi is a standout right guard, and right tackle Josh Conerly showed massive improvement from the first half of the season through the final eight games.

So where does that leave the Commanders? They're a team with clear strengths up front on offense, but serious question marks on defense and at wide receiver. Whether they can outperform their ranking will depend on how quickly their young players develop—and whether the defense can prove the doubters wrong.