![\"Terry](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2235794392-e1768924353294.jpg\")
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Washington Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin. <\/p>\n
The biggest storyline for the Washington Commanders<\/a> headed into the 2025 season wasn\u2019t what it should have been \u2014 that the moribund franchise had somehow turned themselves into Super Bowl contenders after just one season with first-year head coach Dan Quinn and rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels<\/a>.<\/p>\n Instead, the seemingly inane contract battle between NFL All-Pro wide receiver Terry McLaurin<\/a> and management stole all the headlines.<\/p>\n McLaurin, who still had one year left on his contract, held out and was away from his team for the entire offseason and almost all of the preseason.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t make sense because the Commanders were in no position to negotiate<\/a> \u2014 without McLaurin their season was absolutely cooked. In no universe was he not going to get what he wanted eventually, which ended up being a 3-year, $97 million contract extension.<\/p>\n The Commanders didn\u2019t finally cave until August 25, losing an entire offseason of working with Daniels and joining his team just a few weeks before the regular season began.<\/p>\n That rust showed and the Commanders suffered, going from 12-5 in the 2024 regular season to 5-12 in the 2025 regular season and becoming a laughingstock around the NFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n The rub? Nobody on the roster \u2014 nobody \u2014 disappointed more than McLaurin.<\/p>\n McLaurin \u2018Most Disappointing Player\u2019 on Roster<\/p>\n Commanders Wire\u2019s Ivan Lambert<\/a> put McLaurin on blast in his 2025 season postmortem, calling the highly-paid veteran the \u201cMost Disappointing Player\u201d on the roster after he missed a career-high 7 games due to injuries and had career lows of 38 receptions for 582 yards and 3 touchdowns.<\/p>\n \u201c(McLaurin) wasn\u2019t in touch with reality, asked for entirely too much money, then called a press conference to make the Commanders look like the bad guys,\u201d Lambert wrote. \u201cHe was holding out, then holding in, and as a result, he wasn\u2019t ready for the season, finishing with only 38 receptions and three touchdowns.\u201d<\/p>\n Week 15 Game vs. Giants Had Revealing Detail<\/p>\n One prime example of how poorly the Commanders were run in 2025 \u2014 and the ensuing misery \u2014 could be found in the injury report<\/a> ahead of the Week 15 game against the equally miserable New York Giants<\/a>.<\/p>\n There was some brief confusion as to why McLaurin, who had played in the last 2 games, wasn\u2019t even at practice. Which would seem to indicate he wasn\u2019t playing against the Giants. Which was not\u00a0the case.<\/p>\n It was just a pre-scheduled rest day for McLaurin, who had already missed 7 games due to injury. It wasn\u2019t a normal occurrence and it didn\u2019t go unnoticed. Mainly because McLaurin\u2019s non-participation in the offseason and preseason just seemed to extend into the regular season and was one of the biggest reasons the season went off the rails.<\/p>\n Daniels also missed 10 games due to injury, and offensive coordinator Kliff Kinigsbury was fired shortly after the end of the regular season<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cTerry McLaurin & Noah Brown both had a planned day off today,\u201d\u00a0106.7-FM The Fan\u2019s Grant Paulsen wrote<\/a>\u00a0on X. \u201cDeebo Samue<\/a>l was sick. Next year, it\u2019d be great to see Commanders have fewer of those. A healthier team will lead to that. Also, getting younger is a key to this. Tons of vet days have kept them from having full, regular practices.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTony Adame<\/a> covers the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Denver Broncos. A veteran sports writer and editor since 2004, his work has been featured at Stadium Talk, Yardbarker, NW Florida Daily News and Pensacola News Journal. More about Tony Adame<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Commanders\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Washington Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin. The biggest storyline for the Washington Commanders headed into the 2025…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[427,7,6,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-691603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-commanders","8":"tag-commanders","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-washington","12":"tag-washington-commanders","13":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115928496356191093","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691603","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=691603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}