Commanders' Blunder Against Giants Could Cost Head Coach His Job

The Washington Commanders did not lose on Sunday, yet their performance delivered the exact kind of blunder capable of firing a head coach. This is the behavior that alienates fans and turns support against a quarterback who was liked but never truly beloved. The actions taken by this team offended supporters far more than the franchise could ever hope to do when changing from the Redskins nickname.

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The Commanders tied the New York Giants. They swapped a probable victory for what has to be ranked among the NFL's dumbest moves of Week 5, and that is a bold claim considering how many other options existed for foolishness on the field. When it was over, coach Dan Quinn told reporters he felt gutted for his team. That image is like a man holding a filleting knife admitting he feels bad for the fish he just cut up.

So what happened? After blowing a fourteen-point lead in the fourth quarter, Washington found themselves in overtime on the Giants' twenty-six-yard line with fifty-five seconds remaining. All they had to do was kick a field goal and decide how to celebrate. Instead, they ran the football. Then they lined up with twenty-two seconds left to seemingly throw a pass on another play. They had no timeouts remaining, and quarterback Jayden Daniels clearly did not know it.

The Commanders gained two yards on a Daniels scramble when he should have thrown the ball to Jupiter to stop the clock. Daniels also could have gotten to his feet and spiked the ball because seven seconds remained when he was tackled. But he stayed on the ground looking around for a beat or two, as if waiting for new orders from headquarters. They could not line up and spike the ball before time ran out. They never attempted the field goal they should have tried fifty-five seconds earlier. The result was a tie game.

Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss, Quinn said. And regarding the last sequence, we threw it out of bounds, we clocked it off, and you give yourself a chance to kick it. We pride ourselves on those moments at the end of a game. After the first down run, they were still trying to gain more for the kick. The right call was to go clock it early and not put themselves in that spot, he said. That is my responsibility. Nobody else's. He felt gutted for his team.

Quinn looked distraught immediately following the game as he simply stood at the twenty-five-yard line. Alone. Looking at nothing in particular. Doing nothing in particular. Just numb. It remains unclear if Washington coaches themselves were aware of their timeout situation. If they knew, it is unclear whether they communicated the situation to Daniels. Whatever the case, Daniels seemed completely unaware of the timeout situation as he lay there on the ground while the clock and a chance for victory ticked away.

Yeah, like the sequencing of that does not fall on him, Quinn said. It surely fell on him as he was just on the ground waiting for somebody to tell him to get up. Removing the responsibility from Daniels shows the coach does not trust his quarterback to literally know what time it is. Anyone think Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or any high school quarterback with the slightest awareness would be this oblivious?

We just have to be better, Daniels said afterward. We all have to be better. Situational football starts with me. Everybody will say the same thing, but we have to be better at situational football. Daniels was aware in the preseason of what LSU was doing with the No. 5 jersey this year, yet he wasn't aware what to do in the final fifty-five seconds of this game. We have to stop the clock, he said. We have to know the situation. We have to relay that as an offense. It starts with everyone, top down.

It ultimately rests with me." That burden lands squarely on Quinn. His squad sits at 1-3-1 rather than the expected 2-3 record. Blame also belongs to the offensive staff, who failed to ensure Daniels understood his precarious position. The player himself needs a stopwatch stitched into his uniform to track time better. Maybe even the whole team is at fault for missing basic overtime rules. Perhaps renaming the nickname was actually a mercy call. This kind of public humiliation will surely leave no mark in Redskins history.