Nick Cross plays everything. Trey Amos just got named to PFF's All-Breakout Team. Washington's secondary is about to get a lot more dangerous than people think.
Washington's defense gave up more yards than any team in the NFL last season and ranked dead last in total defense. The secondary was the most visible problem, and Adam Peters spent the entire offseason addressing it. Safety Nick Cross and cornerback Trey Amos have everything they need to have the kind of 2026 seasons that change the conversation about this defense entirely.
Nick Cross — The Chess Piece
Cross is 24 years old, 6-foot, 212 pounds, and ran a 4.34 at the combine in 2022 — the fastest safety that year and the eighth-fastest overall. He recorded a 37-inch vertical and a 10-foot-10 broad jump, both top-five marks at his position. The athletic profile is elite. The production has been legitimate too: 251 total tackles, 3.5 sacks, 10 pass breakups, four interceptions, and two forced fumbles across 34 regular-season games over the past two seasons with Indianapolis. In 2024, he finished ninth in the league with 146 tackles, ranked fourth among safeties in run stuffs with 26, and played every defensive snap in all but one game. That is a starter-level producer by any measure.
The intrigue in Washington is how Daronte Jones uses him. In Indianapolis, Cross was asked to do more than his best game is built for — including significant time at free safety, where he allowed a 134.9 passer rating when targeted, a number that tells you exactly what happens when you take a box safety and ask him to cover the back end alone. Jones isn't going to make that mistake. Cross told reporters at OTAs exactly how he sees his own role: "Put on the tape. In Indy I played everything. Here I play everything. I can do literally anything on the field." Dan Quinn backed that up the same week, saying Cross has "more speed maybe than even I thought" in the deep part of the field.
In 2025, Cross had 46 stops that resulted in a negative EPA play for the offense — fifth-most among all defensive backs in the league. In Jones' scheme, which disguises coverages and moves pieces pre-snap, a versatile safety who can play box, deep half, slot, and linebacker in certain alignments is exactly the kind of chess piece that makes an entire defense harder to scheme against. The breakout case is simple: right player, right scheme, right role, for the first time in his NFL career.
Trey Amos — Lockdown Potential in Year 2
PFF named Amos to their 2026 All-Breakout Team. That's not a casual designation. It means their analysts watched enough tape to conclude that the numbers from his rookie season don't reflect the player — and the player is about to show everyone what he actually is. The rookie year numbers were real: 55.8 overall PFF grade, 82nd among 114 qualified cornerbacks. But here is what else was real: in five of his 10 games, Amos graded at 68.5 or higher in coverage. His 51.43% lockdown rate ranked 26th among all cornerbacks. He broke up 17.6% of his targets — nearly one in five — which is elite disruption for any cornerback, let alone a 23-year-old rookie in his first NFL starts.
Then a broken fibula in Week 10 ended his season. He was activated from IR in February, came back healthy, and walked into an entirely new defensive system under Daronte Jones with the starting cornerback job opposite Mike Sainristil already waiting for him. Washington brought in Amik Robertson and Ahkello Witherspoon, but the outside starting role for Amos seems to be a lock. How soon Amos returns could dictate whether recently signed Rasul Douglas plays a bigger role, yet Daronte Jones specializes in the secondary. He has spent his coaching career developing young corners and getting elite performance out of players who underperformed elsewhere. Amos came out of Ole Miss as one of the most technically sound young corners in the 2025 draft class — the broken fibula interrupted that development, not the talent.
A full, healthy season in Jones' two-high scheme — where corners play with their eyes on the quarterback rather than mirroring receivers on an island — is the exact environment that turns Amos' traits into production. The lockdown rate was already 26th in the league in 10 games as a rookie. The pass breakup rate was already elite. Give him 17 games, a system built for his skill set, and the confidence of a second-year player who knows what to expect on Sunday. PFF believes in the breakout. So do I.
Washington's defense was last in the NFL in 2025. Cross and Amos are two of the reasons that will change in 2026.
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