The Washington Commanders already know what they will do if Carnell Tate is still available to be the seventh-overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft, despite more than one warning about how the Ohio State wide receiver will perform at the pro level.
Speaking on The Schrager Hour on Monday, April 20, ESPN’s Peter Schrager revealed, “seven, Commanders. My latest intel is I’ve heard Carnell Tate is their guy. Again, this could change. Carnell Tate could be sitting there at seven, then you have your reliable wide receiver. You have another Ohio State guy you pair with Terry McLaurin and you go to work.”
Schrager also mentioned Tate’s Buckeyes teammate, linebacker Sonny Styles as another potential ‘their guy’ for the Commanders. So is Tate’s fellow wideout Makai Lemon, but the reference to Tate is significant because he’s become one of the more polarizing prospects at the top end of this year’s draft class.
A recurring buyer-beware warning about Tate is tough to ignore.
Carnell Tate Warnings Persist
One week before Schrager offered his insight into how highly the Commanders rate Tate, another analyst was trashing the 21-year-old’s game. During an appearance on The Arena: Gridiron for Underdog, Skip Bayless stated, “I don’t get Carnell Tate. I just don’t. I’m just watching TV and I see one guy named Jeremiah Smith, who might be the first-overall pick one year from right now. And Carnell Tate, to me, doesn’t have elite speed, elite quickness, elite separation.”
Bayless went on to describe Tate as “always sort of the lonesome end over here. He’s got single coverage and they’re like ‘oh, we’ll do that.’ He’s a long-strider, but he’s 4.53, so he has pretty good deep speed, but he’s taken advantage of single coverage and mismatches.”
“I don’t get Carnell Tate. I just don’t. Carnell Tate to me doesn’t have elite speed, elite quickness, elite separation.”
The argument against Tate boils down to him not having eye-popping athleticism, but the bigger concern may be his numbers. As Bayless pointed out, the attention defenses paid to Smith gave Tate ample opportunity to feast on one-on-one matchups, yet he still only “caught 51 balls for 875.”
Production isn’t the only metric worth noting before the draft, but without it, a team is betting on what a player might become, rather than what the player already is at a high level.
That’s quite the risk to take with a top-10 pick. It may be a gamble Commanders general manager Adam Peters can’t resist if, as expected, the primary playmaker he covets is already off the board.
In that scenario, Peters will likely put more stock in a former NFL receiver’s assessment of Tate.
Commanders Can Accept Contrasting View of Tate
Brian Hartline is in a credible position to judge Tate. He was the player’s position coach in college, and Hartline spent seven years as a pro wideout with the Miami Dolphins and Cleveland Browns.
So when Hartline speaks about Tate, the Commanders and other interested parties are likely to listen. Especially when Hartline admits, “Carnell is probably the smartest player I’ve ever coached. All that’s going to happen for as long as Carnell wants to play is people are going to try to bring in the faster guy or the bigger guy and he’ll keep taking their job. No one will unseat him because he will never make mistakes. In a world of inconsistency, he’ll be the most consistent thing on your team,” per Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post.
This is quite the endorsement from somebody in the know, and a reminder it’s not always the receivers who wow scouts who turn prolific in the pros. The Commanders know this better than most after they made McLaurin an unheralded third-round pick in 2019, and he rewarded the faith by posting six 1,000-yard seasons out of eight.
McLaurin has long needed a supporting act. Somebody who could take advantage of the attention ‘Scary Terry’ often receives from defenses.
Tate is used to that role, but another draft receiver, one who also divides opinion, could be the more dynamic choice.
Commanders Have Made Carnell Tate Decision Amid Draft Warnings