Carnell Tate Can Be Next Dependable Wide Receiver for Commanders

For two years, defenses have had a simple plan against the Commanders: take away Terry McLaurin, and make everyone else beat you. It worked. Washington's offense cratered in 2025, ranked 22nd in total yards, and a big chunk of that falls squarely on having no credible WR2 opposite one of the game's best receivers (injuries, too). Adam Peters has one pick at No. 7 to fix it. Carnell Tate could be the answer.

Tate comes out of Columbus at 6-foot-2, 192 pounds, an NFL-ready frame who still has room to add some weight. He's a five-star out of IMG Academy, a two-year contributor in the most loaded receiver room in college football, and the guy who quietly put up 875 yards and nine touchdowns in 2025 — averaging 17.2 yards per catch — while playing second fiddle to Jeremiah Smith on every snap. He finished his three-year career at Ohio State with 121 receptions for 1,872 yards and 14 touchdowns. Those aren't gaudy volume numbers. They don't need to be. The efficiency tells the story.

His 75% catch rate last season came on a nearly 13-yard average depth of target. In other words, he wasn't catching two-yard checkdowns to pad stats. He was winning downfield consistently and making it look routine. He went zero drops on the season. PFF had him winning 87.5% of contested catch situations. Those aren't traits you coach into a 21-year-old — they're traits you draft.

Watch Tate run routes, and you start to understand why scouts reach for the Jaxon Smith-Njigba comp. Nothing he does looks rushed. His releases off the line are clean, his tempo through the stem sets up the break, and when he cuts, there's no wasted movement — no extra step, no drift. He's been called "The Great Adjuster" in scouting circles, and that's accurate. Over and over on tape, you see balls that are slightly underthrown, slightly outside, slightly behind — and Tate just finds them. He twists his body in the air, high-points the catch, and comes down with both feet in bounds. It's a skill set that directly mirrors what Jayden Daniels needs in a receiver: someone who bails out an off-target throw and makes the quarterback look better than the throw deserved.

He can work from the X, the Z, and the slot. He's savvy against zone coverage, finding the soft spots and sitting down to give the quarterback a clean window. Against man, he manipulates defenders with head fakes and tempo changes before accelerating out of his break. He ran a 4.53 at the combine — not elite speed by any measure — but he doesn't need to run past anyone. He beats corners before they know the break is coming.

The limitations are real but manageable. His build-up speed means he's not going to consistently win vertical against elite press corners early in his career, and he's not a yards-after-catch monster — once he catches it, he gains yards with angles rather than broken tackles. Those are NFL-caliber concerns for a No. 1 receiver. They're non-issues for a No. 2.

CBS Sports drew the George Pickens comparison, and it holds up physically — similar builds, similar boundary ability, similar contested-catch toughness. But Tate is cleaner. Pickens rounds routes. Tate doesn't. Pickens has the personality baggage that follows him into every locker room. Tate doesn't have that either. A more accurate comp is Chris Olave, which is exactly where Lance Zierlein landed — a receiver who wins with precision, route savvy, and reliable hands rather than overwhelming athleticism. Olave just put up 100 catches and 1,163 yards in New Orleans last season. That's the floor you're buying at pick No. 7.

McLaurin turns 31 this season. His cap hit balloons to $34 million in 2027, which almost certainly makes 2026 his final year in burgundy and gold unless he is restructured. The Commanders need a receiver who can play alongside him now and replace him later. Tate does both. He's got the route tree to run a full offense at the NFL level from day one, and he's 21 years old — he'll be in his prime when this franchise is supposed to be cresting.

The Ohio State pipeline runs directly through Washington. Terry McLaurin, a third-round pick in 2019, became one of the most consistent receivers in the NFC. Brian Hartline's WR program doesn't manufacture athletes — it manufactures professionals. Tate is the latest product off that line, and by all accounts, he's the most polished one since Smith-Njigba. Pairing him with McLaurin forces defenses into a genuine pick-your-poison choice for the first time since McLaurin arrived in Washington. Defensive coordinators can no longer game-plan around one receiver. Jayden Daniels can no longer be schemed away from a WR2 he can trust.

Peters has a shot at a foundational piece. A receiver who wins with his brain before his legs, adjusts to anything thrown his way, and has three years of big-game Ohio State experience before he's set foot on an NFL field.