Coach Dan Quinn and quarterback Jayden Daniels bemoaned a play that left Washington unable to attempt a field goal before overtime expired.
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The win was there. All the Washington Commanders needed to do was spike the ball and kick a game-ending field goal in overtime. For all of their injuries and struggles this season, the Commanders would have moved just one game back of the NFC East lead with a win over the first-place New York Giants.
Then disaster struck.
On second down with 12 seconds left, quarterback Jayden Daniels surveyed the field before ducking down inbounds while his team was timeout-less. Washington raced but was unable to get another snap off. The Commanders were well within field goal range but never attempted the kick.
The result was a 27-27 tie Sunday afternoon at Northwest Stadium. But the deadlock felt much worse for one squad.
“It felt like a loss,” said wide receiver Treylon Burks, whose 13-yard catch set up Washington at the New York 26-yard line with less than a minute remaining.
“It definitely doesn’t feel like a win,” said defensive lineman Daron Payne, who forced a crucial fumble by New York running back Cam Skattebo on the previous drive.
“It sucks,” Daniels said.
After the game, Coach Dan Quinn said the plan was for the quarterback to throw toward the sideline, so a receiver could make a catch and get out of bounds, or just spike the ball.
The Commanders were already at the 24-yard line, which would have set up kicker Drew Stevens for a 42-yard field goal. The rookie came into the game having converted his only kick this season from 40 to 49 yards out, though he missed an extra point Sunday. Stevens’s only two field goal misses in 11 attempts have been from beyond 50 yards.
Quinn said Washington should have just spiked the ball, rather than risking an extra play for yardage.
“I don’t even have to put [Daniels] into that spot,” he said. “We can finish the kick early. We don’t need to gain more yards.”
Quinn said his team prides itself on pressure-filled times such as Sunday’s closing moments. Daniels added that the Commanders have completed end-of-game drills since the spring. Asked how to fix the situational issue if it’s something already emphasized at practice, Quinn said “more of it.”
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“I want to track every situation that we do within walk-throughs, practice, two-minute drills,” he said. “We’ll continue to do that.”
The catastrophic ending negated a near-signature win for Washington.
Daniels, donning a brace in his first game back from a dislocated left elbow, threw for 199 yards and added two long rushing touchdowns. He finished with 103 yards on the ground — the third-year quarterback’s highest total since his rookie season. Running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt added 82 rushing yards, including a 33-yard dash to open the scoring.
The Commanders’ defense thrived early on, too, limiting the Giants to three first-half points.
But Quinn’s team — which entered Sunday last in the NFL with 112 points allowed after the first quarter this season — surrendered 24 points in the second half, including three straight touchdown drives from the end of the third quarter into the fourth. A stop on any could have iced the game.
“We just got to come out in the second half the same way we come out in the first,” Payne said. “We just got to keep on putting our foot on people and not taking it off.”
With the Dallas Cowboys’ loss to the previously winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday and the Philadelphia Eagles’ defeat against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday in London, a win would have drawn Washington level with those two. A victory also would have moved the Commanders just one game behind the Giants, who lead the NFC East despite losing quarterback Jaxson Dart to season-ending knee surgery.
Instead, Sunday proved to be a major missed opportunity for the Commanders, who next face the undefeated San Francisco 49ers on the road.
“It’s not just one individual, one person,” Daniels said. “We’re all in this together.”
Daniels repeated some form of “have to be better” seven times in his roughly five-minute postgame news conference. Quinn, meanwhile, repeatedly shouldered blame for the game’s ending, saying the decision to go for yardage was “on me.”
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“I’m gutted for our team,” Quinn said, “and that’s the hardest part.”
