{"id":337178,"date":"2025-09-03T01:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T01:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/337178\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T01:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T01:59:11","slug":"commanders-rookie-t-josh-conerly-jr-to-start-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/337178\/","title":{"rendered":"Commanders Rookie T Josh Conerly Jr. To Start Week 1?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With unofficial depth charts coming out in the last few days before the regular season, Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic pointed out that the Commanders listed Oregon rookie Josh Conerly Jr.<\/a> as the starting right tackle<\/a> for Week 1 of the NFL season. If true, it would mean that the No. 29 overall pick of this year\u2019s draft has officially won the position battle<\/a> with incumbent starter Andrew Wylie<\/a>. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, Washington counted on Wylie and third-round rookie left tackle Brandon Coleman<\/a> to bookend the offensive line. On an offensive line that gave up the eighth-most sacks in the NFL last year, neither player graded out favorably. Per Pro Football Focus (subscription required<\/a>), out of 81 players graded at the position last year, Wylie ranked 57th and Coleman ranked 64th.<\/p>\n

It now appears neither player will retain their starting duties from last year, as the team traded for former Texans Pro Bowl left tackle<\/a> Laremy Tunsil<\/a> early on in the offseason. Coleman, though, seems likely to keep a starting gig, even if not at left tackle. The second-year lineman out of TCU is currently slotted in as the first-team left guard. The bump inside shouldn\u2019t be too difficult for Coleman, who started eight games at the position for the Horned Frogs in 2021.<\/p>\n

Wylie, who has spent the past two seasons as the team\u2019s starting right tackle, seems poised to serve in a swing tackle role for Washington in 2025. This makes his early-offseason pay cut<\/a> make a bit more sense. Though, while last year\u2019s starting left guard, Nick Allegretti<\/a>, is listed as the first-team right guard for Week 1, the unofficial depth chart has an \u201cor\u201d between his name and Wylie\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Wylie has a versatile history, having started seasons at both right guard and left guard in the five years he spent in Kansas City before the Commanders. That, combined with Allegretti\u2019s below average performance in his first full-time role as a starter last season, give Wylie a decent shot at following Coleman\u2019s path to bumping inside to retain a starting job. He\u2019ll also likely be close by in the case that the rookie Conerly struggles at all in his first year of NFL play.<\/p>\n

Conerly, a two-year starter for the Ducks, definitely showed areas that needed refinement as the left tackle in Eugene, but his athleticism, body control, and recovery balance made him a strong, bend-but-don\u2019t-break tackle prospect with an ability to start early if necessary. The Commanders have expressed a vision<\/a> of Conerly being a left tackle for the team in the future, but with Tunsil manning the blind side, Washington will test Conerly\u2019s ability to switch sides until potentially moving back to his normal position when Tunsil is no longer with the team.<\/p>\n

It seems that Conerly will be tested in multiple ways this weekend. As he appears set to open his rookie season as a starter, the 21-year-old will be showing that he can both start early in his career and play on the right side of the offensive line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With unofficial depth charts coming out in the last few days before the regular season, Nicki Jhabvala of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[12025,12104,427,7,2917,6,8564,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-337178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-commanders","8":"tag-andrew-wylie","9":"tag-brandon-coleman-tcu","10":"tag-commanders","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-josh-conerly-jr","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-nick-allegretti","15":"tag-washington","16":"tag-washington-commanders","17":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115137895850892931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}