The Draw Play

Washington Commanders fans have been crashing out all week over the ending of the Commies/Giants game. This is not a judgement on them: this is one of the more valid fandom crash-outs I can imagine.

We witnessed an ending for the lore books on Sunday. Games end dramatically pretty often, you can count on one or two last-minute spectacles per week. Just a couple of hours earlier, the Eagles provided us with what most people would have assumed was the disaster ending of the week when they gave up the long run back/field goal opportunity to Jacksonville with 8 seconds left. But it is truly rare to witness an ending you have never seen before. The Commies provided us that.

I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a time management failure of this magnitude before. The closest I can recall was Eberflus two years ago with the Bears. The Bears were down a field goal with 30 seconds left, Caleb got sacked, and Eberflus failed to call the last timeout to stop the clock and offer the Bears more than one more chance. This might manage to be worse.

To Recap: The Commanders, with no timeouts left, reached easy field goal range with 52 seconds left. They then stood around and did nothing for 30 seconds, slowly lined up for another 10 seconds, then ran a play where Jayden Daniels scrambled, went down, and then they stood around for 3 more seconds as time ran out. Giants players celebrated like they just won a playoff game. Dan Quinn did what his QB didn’t do and spiked his headset before staring into the middle distance for another 5 minutes. Every football fan not a Commies fan lost their minds and split their sides. About the only thing that could have made this worse was if they had actually lost because of it instead of just tying.

Who’s fault is all of this? Honestly, who isn’t at fault? I’ve been thinking about it the entire time and I personally keep landing on Jayden Daniels as king dumbass.

Dan Quinn’s management failure here cannot be undersold but there was some logic to it. The Eagles loss was probably in everyone’s mind, and the multiple missed kicks due to weather also had to be intrusive thoughts throughout. Wanting to make sure the game came down to a single kick with no time left has logic that we see coaches follow all the time. His mistake was not telling Daniels to just spike it after enough time passed and/or calling for a better play to set up the kick. Or telling them to take the low risk play much sooner than they did, if they knew they wanted to run another play for a chance at more yards.

The OC called a pretty stupid play too, which had most of the receiving options running up the middle, which is the kind of play that you could get away with as a risk with 40 seconds on the clock (and maybe he called it with plenty of time left when that play all would work). But with less than 15 seconds, those guys are irrelevant because a tackle in bounds ends it. The only option Jayden had was a pass out to the sideline (which was covered) or throwing it away.

Which is why I think this is ultimately most on Jayden. He’s the field general, and he’s not a young guy as far as young QBs go. He has to know the timeout situation, the clock situation, he has to know his options are extremely limited. And he just…short circuits? I legitimately have absolutely no idea what went through his mind when he tucked the ball and went down. The game was over at that point, but if he had at the very least recognized his mistake they might have been able to get a snap off had they rushed enough (but thanks to the terrible routes called on the play, the WRs were not close to being set). He brain farted just as bad as Cousins did when he took the knee, but Cousins did that at the end of the first half. Jayden did it in overtime. A simple throwaway and this game likely ends on a Commies game-winning kick. He acted as if he thought he had a timeout or 30 more seconds. Maybe the worst case of game awareness we’ve seen.

Everybody has said the “right” things since the end, as much as you can. We have to be better, we failed to execute, blah blah blah. No finger pointing. Despite being a tie this game feels like a total loss for the Commanders. The team choked a 14 point lead and then a chance to redeem themselves at the end. They gained nothing meaningful in the standings. They lost all aura and respect and the damage to the coaching staff and reputation might be irreparable.

As of writing Dan Quinn remains employed and honestly I don’t see him going anywhere until late in the season. It is too early and they don’t really have anyone to serve as a good interim. The Commies will likely limp along for a bit and Quinn will have a chance to redeem himself with a hot streak but more likely just get axed after the next bad loss. The Commies fell into the same trap the 2022 Giants did: they oversold themselves off one good fluke year and are paying the price. The team is full of geriatrics. The coaching staff is likely toasted. Magic Johnson sad posted on twitter. This is going to become the defining ending for Dan Quinn’s probable last chance to be a head coach.

Maybe he’d be a better coach if he wore his hat forward instead of thinking he’s a cool 90’s kid.