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The Washington Commanders aren’t recognizable from the team they were in 2023. Not just because they’re now one of the NFL’s best teams but because very few people are still on the team from last season.
Moving forward, the Commanders could undergo even more change in 2025, with several players headed toward free agency. That includes one of the players who has made the biggest impact in his first season with the team in veteran linebacker Bobby Wagner, who signed a 1-year, $6.5 million contract with the Commanders in March 2024.
Through 8 games, Wagner leads the Commanders with 69 tackles to go with 2.0 sacks, 6 TFL, 1 pass deflection and 1 forced fumble.
Bleacher Report’s Matt Holder thinks the Commanders could replace Wagner with Las Vegas Raiders linebacker Robert Spillane in 2025 after Wagner departs in free agency, citing Wagner’s age as one reason Washington might not bring him back.
“Bobby Wagner is set to become a 35-year-old free agent in the offseason, and if he doesn’t return, Washington will have a big hole to fill at linebacker, especially against the run,” Holder wrote. “While Spillane certainly doesn’t have the résumé Wagner does, the 28-year-old has been good against the ground game and a tackle machine over the last two years in Las Vegas. In 24 games with the Silver and Black heading into this weekend, he’s logged 215 total tackles with 12 TFL.”
Wagner Seems Destined For Pro Football HOF
Wagner led the NFL with 183 tackles in 2023 playing for the Seattle Seahawks, earning second-team NFL All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors.
The Seahawks drafted Wagner in the second round (No. 47 overall) in the 2012 NFL draft and he was a key piece of Seattle’s Super Bowl-winning team in 2013 and their return to the Super Bowl in 2014 – both years playing under then-defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.
Wagner has led the NFL in total tackles three times, solo tackles once, assisted tackles four times, safeties once and fumbles returned for touchdowns once, when he returned 2 fumbles for touchdowns in 2015.
Wagner played the first 10 seasons of his career with the Seahawks before signing a 5-year, $50 million contract with the Los Angeles Rams in 2022 — a season most notable for when Wagner leveled a flare-wielding fan who ran on the field in the middle of a road game against the San Francisco 49ers.
Wagner spent one season with the Rams before returning to Seattle in 2023.
Spillane Became Full-Time Starter in 2023
Spillane, the grandson of 1953 Heisman Trophy winner and College Football Hall of Famer Johnny Lattner, made the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent out of Western Michigan in 2018 then played 4 seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers before he signed a 2-year, $7 million contract with the Raiders in March 2023.
Spillane, 6-foot-1 and 229 pounds, got his first NFL opportunity as a full-time starter with the Raiders and has made the most of it. He started all 17 games in 2023 as he finished with 148 tackles, 3 interceptions, 3.5 sacks and 7 TFL.
In his first 5 seasons in the NFL, Spillane made just 16 starts.
Spillane has kept up that same energy in 2024 and through 8 games has 79 tackles, 1 sack and 1 interception despite the Raiders sitting at 2-6 and in last place in the AFC West.