ASHBURN, Va. — There is no replacing Laremy Tunsil. To replicate all that the five-time Pro Bowl left tackle brought to Washington would likely require a couple, if not more, top-tier players, and even then, plenty would be missing.
It’s why the Commanders parted with essentially three draft picks to acquire him last year, and handed him a two-year, $60.2 million extension this year.
Elite left tackles are hard to find. Elite left tackles who are technicians in pass protection and run blocking, who move like players half their size and are respected leaders in the locker room, are generational.
But Washington now has the unenviable task of suddenly filling that massive void. Tunsil tore his left triceps on Saturday and will soon undergo surgery to repair it. The Commanders didn’t place a timetable or his return, but he will be out months. Plural.
“It’s always tough to talk about a player missing time and especially a great player like L.T.,” coach Dan Quinn said Monday. “… It’s a big deal. Like, when it’s game on, you run behind a player like that in the running game and in pass protection.”
Quinn confirmed that Brandon Coleman, a 2024 third-round pick who started most of his rookie season at left tackle, will move back there in place of Tunsil. Coleman shifted inside to left guard last year, but was replaced by Chris Paul after only two starts.
Coleman returned to left tackle for the final stretch of the season after Tunsil suffered shoulder and oblique injuries, and he moved around quite a bit at the start of this offseason. But when camp opened late last month, his focus was solely on competing with Paul for the starting left guard job.
Until Saturday.
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Coleman was the obvious option to take over for Tunsil because of his experience at the position and the team’s success with him there in 2024. Moving second-year tackle Josh Conerly Jr. would have interrupted his development, and keeping Andrew Wylie as the swing lineman preserves the top backup option for multiple positions up front.
Quinn said signing another veteran isn’t in the cards — at least, for now.
But Coleman alone can’t and won’t be the extent of the answer for Washington. While Tunsil is lauded for his pass protection, he was also one of the league’s top run-blocking tackles; Washington’s offensive total rushing success rate was 43.8 percent when Tunsil was on the field, the sixth-highest rate for left tackles last season.
Without him, Washington may have to slide protection to the left or use an extra tight end or back to chip more often, making it even more necessary that younger players, such as running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt (among others), develop into sound blockers.
“There will be things that have to change, but we have all the trust in the world in Brandon,” offensive coordinator David Blough said. “He’s played really well at left tackle over the last few years, and we’re excited to feature some of the things that he does really well, too.”
Coleman said moving back to tackle is “like riding a bike” and hasn’t been a difficult transition because of his experience at the position. The more impactful change has come from his work away from the field.
He spent much of the offseason in Tuscaloosa, Ala., training alongside Tunsil, who has become a mentor to Coleman and Conerly and invited both down to take part in his offseason training regimen.
For several weeks, the three were immersed in Tunsil’s preseason boot camp, which includes on-field work with Tunsil’s personal offensive line coach, Mike Wahle; strength and conditioning work with his longtime strength coach, Dominic Studzinski; nutritional expertise from dietician Jacob Mertens; and customized meals courtesy of Tunsil’s personal chef, Ronald Shaw.
For Coleman, the work was about both prepping for the season and learning what it takes to be a top offensive lineman. The Commanders replaced him at left guard last season in part because of nagging injuries that, Coleman believes, could have been prevented with better habits.
“There’s priorities that I didn’t do the first couple years that I just had to reflect on and kind of be accountable on,” he said. “I changed that last year, but then even more this year. That’s why I went with Laremy for that month, and dragged my wife out there to Alabama, the middle of nowhere. But she understood. It’s just really seeing how one of the greatest tackles to ever do it does it. Like, how do I need to live to give myself a chance to be like that guy?”
Coleman said he’s already incorporated some of Tunsil’s regimen into his own. He now uses Mertens regularly for nutritional guidance. He also hired a local chef to prepare meals, has used the coaching points and techniques Wahle taught him over the summer and started using some of the recovery modalities that helped him in Alabama.
“When you go through the tough things, you want to come out the other side stronger, harder and learn the lessons,” Quinn said. “I feel like Brandon and a couple of guys are in that same space. Maybe the resilience that you have to show going through it, it sucks when you do it, but there is value on the other side of that.”
The adversity facing Tunsil now is significant, but the team has left open the possibility of his return. Triceps tears are more prevalent among NFL players (especially linemen) than the general population because of pushing motions inherent in their jobs. Complete tears of the triceps tendon require surgery because there is no other tendon that connects the muscle to the bone, explained Brian Lee, an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Los Angeles.
“Assuming it’s just a direct repair, with most protocols you start doing some strengthening around eight weeks post-op,” said Lee, who is not treating Tunsil but specializes in shoulder and elbow injuries. “Then generally after 12 weeks, a patient won’t have restrictions. So, assuming he’s kind of progressing as expected, I think right around that three-month mark is when we would expect him to go back.”
A study published in 2015 in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine examined triceps tears among NFL players from 2000 to 2009, finding that 37 players suffered the injuries and required surgery. Those players missed an average of 165 days for surgery and recovery.
Another study in the Journal of Orthopaedics that reviewed the incidence and impact of triceps tears among NFL players from 2009 to 2022 found 24 such injuries in that span. The return-to-play rate of those triceps injuries was 70.8 percent, although less than half of the players studied returned to pre-injury performance levels.
What those studies didn’t note was the type of tendon rupture. The majority of triceps tendon tears, Lee said, occur where the tendon meets the bone. In such circumstances, players typically return to close to their pre-injury strength. On rare occasions, triceps tendon ruptures occur where the muscle attaches to the tendon, requiring a longer recovery with lower odds of returning to previous strength.
Rushing his recovery could put Tunsil at risk of retearing the tendon, Lee said. (Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham retore his in Super Bowl LIX, 11 weeks after he suffered the initial tear.)
Quinn said the team would have a better idea of Tunsil’s projected timetable after his surgery. But until then, the team is moving forward with Coleman.
