Washington Commanders’ $15 million dollar free agent addition is already proving he can bounce back from a bad 2025 season
The Commanders brought in cornerback Amik Robertson with the idea he would help upgrade one of the NFL’s worst secondaries. So far, he’s impressing the coaching staff in the early portion of the offseason.
You don’t have to follow the Washington Commanders closely to understand just how bad the secondary was last year.
Sure, injuries played a role in the unit’s demise, but poor play was also a big culprit. Marshon Lattimore was basically useless, Mike Sainristil took a big step back, and Trey Amos was just OK before suffering a season-ending injury in Week 10.
The Commanders made big changes, as a result. Joe Whitt was fired after the season and the team signed guys like Amik Robertson, Nick Cross, and Akhello Witherspoon to help bounce back in 2026.
And it’s the former of the trio that’s really impressed, so far.
“Amik is a Pit Bull out there, as we know, and he plays with a certain level of intensity,” Commanders defensive coordinator Daronte Jones told reporters when asked about Robertson and Sainristil. “Those guys, you see them in the meeting room, they mess very well with one another, they like two peas in the pod, and so that chemistry that they’re building will help us grow, and again utilize our versatility on the defensive side of the ball.”
“I liked the balance of what I’ve seen with Amik and Mikey outside,” Dan Quinn recently told reporters. “Both of them have similar games in some ways, in terms of the competitiveness … they’ve got football smarts.
Amik Robertson, like a lot of the Commanders, is looking to bounce back from a bad year
Robertson was a difference-maker for the Detroit Lions in 2024, but he did not play up to the same level in 2025.
Comparing Amik Robertson’s 2024 and 2025 seasons
As noted above, Robertson’s game fell off, big time, in 2025. Below are his stats from 2024-2025, per Pro Football Focus. The 2024 numbers are on the left and the 2025 numbers are on the right:
- Reception % allowed: 57.5%/67.0%
- Receiving yards allowed: 595/817
- Interceptions: 0/1
- QB rating allowed when targeted: 89.3/109.3
- Forced Incompletion rate: 11%/10%
- Receiving TDs allowed: 2/6
- Missed tackle rate: 10.6%/16.4%
- PFF coverage grade: 60.4/48.1
In 2024, he played really well when he got thrust to the outside corner after Carlton Davis’ injury. The highlight was shutting down Justin Jefferson in the season finale. He broke his arm in the Wild Card game, but the talk was still about how Detroit should extend him after that year.
In 2025, it looked significantly different. Robertson struggled all year with guys getting separation on him and putting up explosive plays. He was moved outside, then moved back inside, and then moved back outside again to no avail. Quarterbacks were finding him and targeting him, and it became completely expected that the Lions would not bring him back at the end of the year.
If Robertson can get back to the level of play he provided in 2024, he’d give the Commanders a versatile, fiery chess piece that would certainly help the unit recover from last year’s debacle. Washington clearly believes he can make that happen after inking him to the tw0-year, $15.020 million contract he signed back in March.
But, with most things NFL-related, only time will tell. Regardless, this is the exact kind of stuff you want to hear in the early-goings.