{"id":809796,"date":"2026-03-13T10:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/809796\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:51:13","slug":"mm-3-13-2-maryland-football-alums-sign-with-washington-commanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/809796\/","title":{"rendered":"MM 3.13: 2 Maryland football alums sign with Washington Commanders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A pair of Maryland football alumni will return to the DMV for the 2026 NFL season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Tight end Chig Okonkwo and safety Nick Cross both signed free agent contracts with the Washington Commanders on Wednesday. Okonkwo\u2019s deal was finalized Thursday, with Cross yet to officially sign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Okonkwo signed a three-year deal worth up to $30 million. Cross\u2019 deal is for two years, worth up to $14 million. The specifics of each contract are not yet public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Okonkwo and Cross were both All-Big Ten honorable mentions in 2021, their final seasons in College Park. Cross was drafted in the 2022 NFL Draft\u2019s third round by the Indianapolis Colts, and Okonkwo went one round later to the Titans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Dirty Terps\u2019 weekend pitchers are set.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Four Maryland wrestlers will compete in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Maryland tennis hosts Rutgers this weekend for its Big Ten home opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of Maryland football alumni will return to the DMV for the 2026 NFL season. Tight end&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2069],"tags":[427,7,6473,6,111621,855,111,2480],"class_list":{"0":"post-809796","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-maryland-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-the-maryland-minute","13":"tag-washington","14":"tag-washington-commanders","15":"tag-washingtoncommanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116221487790915071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809796","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=809796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}