If there’s one player who can flip Week 14 on its head for the Washington Commanders, it’s veteran Daron Payne — a player whose 2025 season has been defined as much by frustration as by flashes of dominance.
At 3–9, with a defense that has bottomed out far too often, Washington needs one of its foundational pieces to finally play like one again. And for Payne, the stage doesn’t get much clearer than this week against the Minnesota Vikings.
It’s almost hard to reconcile how much has changed around him since entering the league as a first-round pick out of Alabama back in 2018. He no longer has his longtime running mate, Jonathan Allen, beside him — not only gone, but lining up on the opposite sideline this Sunday as a member of the Vikings. The Commanders’ front has been rebuilt, gutted, and reshaped multiple times over the past few years, but Payne has remained.
Commanders need a stellar performance from Daron Payne against the Vikings
The expectation, even looking back to the start of the year, fair or not, is that he anchors whatever the new identity looks like.
Yet the production hasn’t been there. Not even close.
Payne enters Week 14 on the longest pressure drought of his career: three straight games without a single pressure. On 62 combined pass rush snaps across those matchups, the interior defensive lineman didn’t generate a single hurry, hit, or sack. In 129 career games, he had never gone three straight weeks without registering pressure, until now.
And when you zoom out, the complete picture of his season isn’t much kinder.
Payne hasn’t recorded a sack since Week 1, when he opened the year with a two-sack burst against the New York Giants. He has 17 total pressures from the interior — respectable, but far below what Washington needs from him. Add in the suspension for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown in Week 10, which kept him out of the Madrid game, and 2025 has been the most turbulent year of his career.
Still, the talent hasn’t evaporated. Payne remains one of the league’s most explosive interior athletes, capable of taking over a ballgame when he’s locked in. And if the Commanders want to inch to 4–9 and find something positive to build on, it’s going to start with No. 94 collapsing the interior against quarterback J.J. McCarthy.
For the burgundy and gold, Week 14 represents a crossroads — not just for Washington, but for Payne’s season.
The Commanders don’t need him to be perfect; they need him to be disruptive. They need the version of Payne who can take over a drive, wreck a third down, or change field position with one dominant snap. Week 14 should present that opportunity.