Everything you need to know about Commanders’ unknown linebackers

During their playing careers, Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio played in 297 games at linebacker, 148 of which they started. Therefore, their inability to construct a competent linebacking core over the past two years in Washington remains the biggest head scratcher of their tenure.

As of now, the Commanders roster lists ten linebackers. Only one of them, Cole Holcomb, is a proven starter. All Washington Commanders fans are rooting for last year’s number one draft pick Jamin Davis to take a major step forward in his second season. The only other players with more than one seasons’ worth of experience are journeyman insider backer David Mayo and young vet Khaleke Hudson, who has been mainly used on special teams thus far.

As a group, those ten players have logged 199 professional games with 75 starts. Mayo accounts more than half the games, and Holcomb accounts for over half the starts. Clearly this remains a work in progress.

Can the Washington Commanders expect any legit defensive help from the other six largely unknown players fighting for roster spots in 2022? Let’s take a quick look at those six players. Four are rookies – all signed as UDFAs this off-season. The other two are entering their second seasons, after playing a little bit for Washington in 2021.

When in doubt, go in alphabetical order.

A breakdown of the Commanders unknown linebackers

Milo Eifler

Eifler got into a few games toward the end of last season, and did little to distinguish himself in either a good or bad way. At 6’1”, 228, with good athleticism, he would profile to be an ideal weakside linebacker. But Eifler is battling against a late start. He didn’t begin playing organized football until he was a sophomore in high school. After an unsuccessful stint at the University of Washington, he lost another year of development to the old transfer rules. And then, of course, the pandemic hit. The result of all this is that Eifler simply has not played very much football in his life, and as you might expect, his football instincts are still slow.

He had enough athleticism to be a top recruit after just two full years of football in high school, and he has shown enough flashes to entice a defensive wizard like Robert Saleh to scoop him up as a UDFA in 2021. But the Jets let him go because he simply wasn’t ready to consistently play up to NFL standards. This would seem to be an good candidate to benefit from the tutelage of Del Rio and Rivera, but he remains a longshot to contribute much beyond special teams in the near future.

Ferrod Gardner

Gardner was a teammate of the Commanders’ 4th-round draft pick Percy Butler, at Louisiana-Lafayette. (In an interview with SI before the draft, Gardner named Butler as the teammate he would bring into a foxhole with him.) Unlike Milo Eifler, Gardner has a lot of experience, playing in 45 college games over the course of his career. Injuries and COVID disruptions resulted in Gardner delaying his entry into the NFL, and that means he will be a 25 year old rookie. It’s possible that Gardner’s extra maturity and connection with Butler could give him a leg up on some of the other young players, but that remains to be seen.

Gardner’s size – he is listed at 6’1”, 215 – would make him a candidate to play the hybrid linebacker-safety position that Landon Collins thrived in late last season. The Washington Commanders have several candidates for this role (including Butler), but this flexibility might also be something in Gardner’s favor.