7 Commanders players who need extended reps in 2023 regular-season finale

Which Washington Commanders players deserve extended reps during their regular-season finale against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 18?

If you think the Washington Commanders' final game against the Dallas Cowboys this Sunday is meaningless, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of professional sports. Okay - I get that maybe it doesn’t mean anything to you. Maybe the only thing you are rooting for is not losing draft position. But trust me, this game has meaning.

It has meaning to a core of fans who would rather beat Dallas - especially when it would hurt their postseason chances - than win a Super Bowl. And it has a great deal of meaning for every player who steps onto the field.

These are highly competitive men who have been playing and mostly winning their entire lives. Unless they are elite players, many of them will be playing for their future careers.

A bad performance - where it looks as if they have given up on the season - could bounce a marginal player right out of the league. A good performance, like Sam Howell’s in last year’s final game, could boost their stock either within the Commanders organization or with another team.

NFL careers are short. Professionals never take a game off. With that out of the way, here are seven players I want to see get a lot of time against the Cowboys.

Playing them would not constitute tanking to preserve draft position. I abhor that mindset. Playing them - as was the case with Howell last year - would provide a good way to evaluate whether they are part of the team’s future. We’ll do potentially four such players on offense and three on defense.