The Washington Commanders should probably be 2-3 right now, but a couple of bone-headed decisions by head coach Dan Quinn and quarterback Jayden Daniels turned a near surefire win over the New York Giants into an overtime tie, which led multiple NFL analysts to call for Quinn’s firing on Sunday, October 11.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk said he had never seen such poor game management in five decades as a football fan.
“I’ve been watching football for 50 years. I’ve never seen an end-of-game failure like the one the Commanders committed,” Florio wrote on X. “I thought the Fox bug was incorrect, and that Washington had a timeout. It’s an immediately fireable offense by Dan Quinn.”
Colin Cowherd of The Volume said something similar on his X account.
“What in the world was Dan Quinn thinking? Or Jayden Daniels?” Cowherd wrote. “That’s a fireable offense. Completely inexcusable.”
Instead of celebrating a massive win in the NFC East Division that would have pulled the Commanders to 2-3 on the season, Washington is now 1-3-1 and has eight days to prepare for a Monday Night Football showcase on the road against the San Francisco 49ers.
Coach Dan Quinn Took Responsibility for Commanders’ Late Failures in Week 5
Quinn, for his part, tried to shoulder all the blame for how Sunday’s contest ended.
“That falls on me and is my responsibility,” Quinn said during his postgame press conference, per a social media report from JP Finlay of NBC Sports. “I’m gutted for this team.”
Quinn has been the head coach in Washington for the past three seasons. The team went 12-5 and appeared in the NFC Championship Game during his first year, when Daniels was a rookie. However, the Commanders are 6-15-1 in the 22 games since.
“Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss. The last sequence, you throw it out of bounds or you clock it and you give yourself a chance to kick it,” Quinn continued, per Tashan Reed of the Washington Post. “After the first down run, we were still trying to gain more for the kick. The right call was, honestly, we can go clock it early and don’t put ourselves in that spot. That’s my responsibility. Nobody else’s.”
QB Jayden Daniels Blames Miscommunication, Himself for Commanders’ Tie With Giants
Daniels has still never lost to the Giants during his career, though he is now 3-0-1 in four starts against New York.
The quarterback blamed both himself and miscommunication across the offense for how Washington’s game ended on Sunday.
“We just gotta be better, like, overall. Like, the whole team with just situational football,” Daniels said during his postgrame press conference. “You know, we had a chance early in the game to finish the game — offensively, defensively — and we didn’t capitalize on that. And then we still have the opportunity at the end of the game to win the game, and we didn’t do that.
“Like I said, it starts with me communicating to the whole offense in the huddle. And I think everybody would say that, top down,” he continued. “Just gotta be better. Ultimately, it’s on me.”
Commanders Called on to Fire HC Dan Quinn After Giants Debacle