We began a long journey together back on March 11, when CB Amik Robertson was the first veteran free agent signed by the Commanders in 2026. The roster building continued at a fast pace, with the team eventually signing 14 veterans from other teams that are now on Washington’s 53-man roster. The Commanders were as active in free agency in 2026 as they had been in 2024 & 2025 as Adam Peters continued working to fill in the roster void left by the roster (mis)managment of Ron Rivera.
Despite having
only 6 draft picks — and none in the 2nd or 4th rounds — Peters seemed to get maximum impact, finding good value and promising potential with every player selected from Sonny Styles to Athan Kaliakmanis.
With all the exciting roster-building moves made this offseason, it seemed like a good idea to hold a contest to see who, here at Hogs Haven, could do the best job of predicting the eventual roster status of 20 late-round draft picks, college undrafted free agents and veterans on the roster bubble.
This year’s contest included entries from 95 participants, a big increase from last year’s 75, but still a little short of the all-time high of 110. The knowledge on display this year was impressive; I’m pretty sure it’s the first time that everyone in the contest finished with positive points — in fact, no one scored fewer than 12 points this year.
The winner
The winner of the 2026 Roster Prediction Contest is A Hillbilly Fan, who scored an impressive total of 94 points out of a possible 144, correctly predicting the status of 15 out of 20 players. The prediction that seemed to separate him from his competition was identifying that Trent Scott would end up on the practice squad; the 2nd & 3rd place finishers both picked the veteran OT to make the 53-man roster.
Two entrants — dnk and country_roads_take_mahomes — tied with 92 points each. I applied the tie breaker to sort them into 2nd & 3rd place. dnk actually finished in a tie for 3rd place in 2025, so he looks like a consistent source of good information about AP’s thinking and about the Washington roster!
Here is a list of the top 12 point-scorers in the contest
So, on behalf of all the readers and contributors here at Hogs Haven, I’d like to extend my congratulations to A Hillbilly Fan for demonstrating his deep understanding of the bottom of the Commanders roster.
As has been true of each Roster Prediction Contest winner since the contest began in 2017, A Hillbilly Fan will, in perpetuity, be entitled to proclaim himself “Roster Contest Champion, 2026” even though signature lines are a thing of the past.
Let it be known in every corner of the land, from this day forth, that A Hillbilly Fan is the Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and 2026 Roster Prophet Extraordinaire of Hogs Haven!
The contest and results
Entrants had to predict one of three outcomes for each player:
- He made the team (the final 53-man roster)
- He was put onto the Commanders practice squad; or
- He was cut
Entrants earned points for correct predictions, but were penalized for incorrect predictions by losing points.
The winning entry was determined by looking at the status of the 20 players at 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, 4 September 2026.
Here’s what actually happened to the 20 players:
Congratulations to A Hillbilly Fan on his win, and to the rest of the entrants on well-thought-out and high-scoring entries. The overall accuracy of the entries is a testament to a fan base who is extremely knowledgeable about the relative unknowns at the bottom of the Commanders roster in 2026. Truly arcane knowledge!
I want to thank everyone who participated. I hope everyone enjoyed the contest and will return next year when we will update the contest to be even bigger and better by changing the year to 2027!
Enjoy the regular season, and #RaiseHail!!!
