Questionable offseason decisions forced Commanders into Phidarian Mathis pick

Through two rounds of the 2022 NFL Daft, the Washington Commanders have addressed a pair of glaring needs. On Thursday night, they traded back and netted Penn State wideout Jahan Dotson, in addition to a third- and fourth-round pick.

On Friday, the Commanders stayed put at No. 47 overall, which was surprising by itself considering how many trades unfolded before them.

With Daron Payne’s outlook for 2022 extremely bleak, Washington took Alabama defensive tackle Phidarian Mathis. The pick fills a major need with Payne, who played the the most snaps of any Commanders DL in 2021, now in a contract year.

Who knows? The way Washington operates, it wouldn’t be earth-shattering if Payne was traded before the end of the draft or offseason.

While all of those notes put the Mathis pick into perspective, the Commanders made their own mess, if you will, by drafting the Alabama star, who revealed in his post-draft interview that he was expected to go in Round 3 or 4.

The Commanders were forced into drafting Phidarian Mathis.

Was this a panic move by Washington? Maybe, but they only have themselves to blame for the backlash they’re currently receiving.

It starts with the Commanders initially convincing themselves they would extend Payne this offseason. Ron Rivera told reporters back in February that the plan was to initiate negotiations with Payne’s camp during the Combine. A few crucial months later and those plans were upended, along with the team’s drafting strategy.

With Payne and Jonathan Allen under contract for the long haul, the Commanders could’ve justified letting Tim Settle and Matthew Ioannidis leave.

We’re not sure what went awry in discussions with Payne, but wouldn’t it have made more sense to re-sign Settle to the same deal he got with Buffalo?

That would’ve put the writing on the wall in regard to Payne’s future and the Commanders could’ve added more depth behind Settle later in the draft as opposed to using their second-rounder on Mathis. That would’ve offset the loss of Ioannidis, who was likely to get cut following the Carson Wentz trade anyway.

In this scenario, Washington would have Allen, Payne, Settle and said draft pick at defensive tackle. At that point, they would have the flexibility to float Payne in trade talks and sign a veteran rotation player on the cheap in free agency.

The last thing we want to do is play the hindsight game, but the Commanders management of their DL has been troubling since the offseason started. Wanting to extend Payne was puzzling to begin with given they had just signed Allen to a four-year contract and Montez Sweat and Chase Young being due for new deals in the near future.

Now, it’s seemingly all blown up in their place … unless, of course this was the masterplan all along. But if that was the case, we’d have bigger problems.

Again, this is nothing against Mathis. He could end up being a stud and we wish him nothing but success and the best in Washington.

But it’s hard not to look at this pick and not draw the conclusion that the Commanders made it due to self-inflicted losses.