Leo Chenal Is the Linebacker Room Now

I've written three pieces on this in two days, and the situation hasn't stabilized — it's just gotten quieter, which is its own kind of bad. Frankie Luvu is out. Jordan Magee is out. What's left, per the depth chart, is Leo Chenal at the top, Austin Keys behind him, and Kain Medrano third. None of those names appear in last season's key players block for a reason.

Luvu logged 86 tackles and 3 sacks across 17 games in 2025 — the kind of workload that tells you how much the defense leaned on him. That production doesn't just disappear from the stat sheet; it disappears from the field, in Dallas, against a team that will absolutely test the middle of Washington's defense early and often. The Commanders were already thin up front after Jer'Zhan Newton's pectoral surgery and Deatrich Wise Jr.'s PUP designation. Losing two linebackers on top of that means the front seven is being asked to hold shape with a patchwork that wasn't built for this moment.

Chenal is a capable player, and it's not fair to write him off before he's taken a snap in this role. But there's a difference between being a capable backup and being the guy a defense depends on in a road divisional game. Washington is about to find out which one he is.