The Washington Commanders made it clear how much emphasis they wanted to put on improving the defensive side of the ball when they hired Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as their new head coach in February 2024.
Since then, Quinn has gone about filling the roster with as much defensive talent – and potential — as he can via free agency and the draft.
Pro Football Focus NFL writer Trevor Sikkema singled out a pair of Washington safeties as the key rookies to watch in the preseason with the Commanders’ exhibition opener against the New York Jets on Aug. 10.
“It was very intriguing when the Commanders drafted both Dominique Hampton and Tyler Owens,” Sikkema wrote. “They are super-sized safeties whose body type and athleticism give them position versatility. Washington also brought in Jeremy Chinn this offseason, who is of a similar mold. I am looking forward to seeing how Dan Quinn deploys them.”
While the Commanders didn’t draft Owens — he was signed as an undrafted free agent — Hampton was a fifth-round pick (No. 161 overall) in the 2024 NFL draft after helping lead the University of Washington to the College Football Playoff national championship game following the 2023 season.
Hampton, Owens Both Built Like NFL Safeties
One thing that jumps off the page about both Hampton and Owens is their size. Hampton is 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds and Owens is 6-foot-2 and 213 pounds.
They’re also fast. Hampton ran the 40-yard dash in 4.45 seconds at the NFL combine and Owens was projected to run the 40 in the 4.2-second range at the combine before he injured his groin on his first attempt. Before that, he had the highest vertical jump (41 inches) of any safety at the combine and registered 12 feet, 2 inches in the broad jump — one inch shot of the world record.
Hampton put up big numbers at Washington, where he set the school record by playing 57 games over his career. As a senior in 2023, he had 109 tackles, 2 interceptions and 7 pass deflections.
Owens May Have Talked Way Out of Draft
Owens was projected as a player who would be selected in the mid to late rounds, but a bizarre interview at the NFL combine may have tanked his stock — an interview in which Owens expressed his belief that there weren’t other planets in the solar system besides Earth and that he believed in the “flat Earth” theory.
Dallas Mavericks superstar Kyrie Irving drew heavy criticism for openly stating he believed the earth was flat and not round during a podcast interview in 2018 and later apologized for it.
Whiskey Riff’s Matt Fitzgerald wrote that those comments may have turned NFL teams off.
“Look, NFL locker rooms are not full of boy scouts. Some seriously dubious characters get paid millions upon millions of dollars to play a child’s game for a living,” Fitzgerald wrote. “You don’t need to be some transcendent intellectual to make it in the league, either. But I can only go so far. Giving credence to Flat Earth Theory and insisting there is no space, nor are there other planets? Sorry. That’s a bridge, nay, a galaxy too far.”
