Commanders Fire Tight Ends Coach Ben Steele Days Before Training Camp Over DWI Arrest

The Washington Commanders fired tight ends coach Ben Steele on Monday, just two days before training camp opens Wednesday. The team's statement was short: they were parting ways with Steele and would have no further comment.

Steele had been on the job since February, hired away from the Arizona Cardinals after three seasons there. His tenure in Washington lasted about five months.

The firing traces back to an arrest on June 7 in Loudoun County, Virginia. According to court records cited by both CBS Sports and The Washington Post, Steele was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. He faces three additional charges: refusing a blood or breath test, obstructing or resisting an officer without force, and a fourth charge that the Post describes as changing course after signaling and the New York Post describes as changing course without signaling.

None of those charges have gone to trial. No conviction has been reported. These are pending charges in Virginia's court system, not a finished legal case.

The Athletic reported that the Commanders placed Steele on administrative leave after he told the team about the arrest himself, and that the team then notified the NFL league office. That sequence matters: Steele disclosed the arrest rather than getting caught by outside reporting first. The team kept him on leave through offseason minicamp, using offensive assistant and former NFL receiver Wes Welker to coach the tight ends group in his absence.

The Commanders and multiple outlets, including CBS Sports and WMBD radio (citing Field Level Media), reported that Steele's actual firing stemmed from a violation of team policy, not automatically from the arrest itself or the underlying charges. The Washington Post's sourcing, a person familiar with the situation speaking anonymously, says the same thing. What specific policy Steele violated has not been detailed publicly by the team or by any outlet's sourcing. The Commanders said they'd have no further comment, and no outlet has published the specifics of the violation.

Head coach Dan Quinn is expected to name Steele's replacement Tuesday, according to The Athletic, as relayed by CBS Sports and WMBD. The new coach will have exactly one day of lead time before players report for training camp Wednesday.

Steele, 48, was a useful hire on paper. In Arizona he helped tight end Trey McBride become one of the position's best players in football, with McBride setting a positional record of 126 catches in 2025 and topping 1,100 receiving yards each of the past two seasons, per CBS Sports. Washington brought him in to work with Chig Okonkwo, John Bates and Ben Sinnott, a group that needed development after a 5-12 season.

Before Arizona, Steele had stints as an assistant offensive line coach for the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings, and coached tight ends for the Buccaneers and Falcons going back to 2014. He played tight end himself for the Green Bay Packers in 2004 and 2005 after going undrafted out of Mesa State.

This is one piece of a broader coaching overhaul under Quinn following Washington's 5-12 collapse last season, a steep drop after Jayden Daniels' rookie year ended with a trip to the NFC Championship Game. Quinn already replaced offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury with first-time play-caller David Blough, and fired defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. in favor of Daronte Jones, previously the Vikings' defensive backs coach under Brian Flores.

What "violation of team policy" specifically means remains unclear. It could refer to the arrest disclosure timeline, conduct during the incident, or something else the team hasn't detailed. Neither the Commanders nor any of the reporting identifies that policy by name. Training camp opens Wednesday. Washington will need a new tight ends coach in place with essentially no runway before players hit the field, and a joint practice with the Miami Dolphins is set for August 12.