Washington Commanders draft Phidarian Mathis: Grading the pick

The Washington Commanders selected defensive tackle Phidarian Mathis with in the second-round (47th overall pick) of the NFL draft. Let’s grade the pick.

The Washington Commanders‘ second-round pick was the 47th overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft. After using their first-rounder on wide receiver Jahan Dotson out of Penn State (and getting some extra picks by trading down), they decided to go defense in the second with defensive tackle Phidarian Mathis out of Alabama.

Let’s break it down.

Okay let’s get the obvious thing out of the way early here, Washington has taken a lot of defensive linemen early in the draft in recent years. So much so that I told them to stay away from the defensive line in this draft.

To be fair to the Commanders though, since then they have lost Matthew Ioannidis and Tim Settle. And it doesn’t look like they’re going to be extending Da’Ron Payne. So getting a replacement doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

That being said, you still have Montez Sweat and Chase Young on the outside. And Jonathan Allen is one of the best interior defensive linemen in all of football. That’s an elite threesome.

Washington also still has Payne, so this feels weird. Maybe they are planning on trading him, but it just seems like they have too much going on here.

What makes this even worse, is there were a lot of quarterbacks on the board. Yes, they traded for Carson Wentz this offseason. Is anyone really expecting him to be the long-term solution though? Maybe he will be. But the only quarterback off the board so far is Kenny Pickett.

There was a time when Washington taking Malik Willis or Matt Corral at 11 was the talk of all the mock drafts. Now they had a chance to take either (and a few other QB options) at 47. Seemed like a great move to have Wentz there as the gap QB.

If you didn’t want to go quarterback, Washington working to fix their secondary or linebacker corps would’ve made sense. Trying to get a stud offensive linemen or even a potential franchise tight end would’ve probably left fewer people confused.

Mathis did have a phenomenal in 2021 with Alabama. The defensive tackle racked up 10.5 tackles for loss and nine sacks. He’s proven himself to be a dominant run stopper and a great pass rusher. Does he fit into the defense though? Right now he doesn’t.

This does give Washington a cheap option so they don’t have to pay Payne if they don’t want to though. And Mathis does provide them with a lot of flexibility as he can play anywhere along the line (sort of like what Ioannidis used to do).

This is a tough one to grade. Mathis could be a fantastic addition to their line and he could produce immediately if needed. Right now he’s blocked though. So the Commanders will have to figure out what they’re doing with Payne.

The fact that he’s only 11 months younger than Payne seems weird, but it’s not the age, it’s the money.

Overall, it feels like there were much bigger needs for Washington. They could’ve gone a number of directions with this pick. So while Phidarian Mathis is a great player, it’s hard to argue that it feels like a strange pick.

They definitely could have gotten him later in the draft and focused on a bigger need here.

With that in mind, this grade isn’t about Mathis being bad – it’s about the Commanders passing up on other positions of need.

Final Grade: D+