The Commanders worked their way into comfortable field-goal range with Jayden Daniels’ pass to Treylon Burks, who went out of bounds at the New York Giants’ 26-yard line with 1 minute, 2 seconds remaining.
Washington kept pushing for yards despite it being just a 43-yard field goal attempt. They ran Rachaad White to the right despite having no timeouts. He gained two yards on a play that ended with 55 seconds left.
The Commanders had plenty of time to discuss everything and ultimately decided to try
one more play to make it a shorter field goal.
As we all know by now, this what happened next:
That led to a 27-27 tie against the New York Giants on Sunday at Northwest Stadium that left everyone stunned at what they just saw. It was a brutal sequence and awful display of situational awareness that cost Washington a win.
After the game, head coach Dan Quinn and quarterback Jayden Daniels explained what went down in a moment where everything fell apart.
“Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss,” Quinn told on-site reporters in his postgame press conference. “The last sequence – you throw it out of bounds, you clock it, you give yourself a chance to kick it. We pride ourselves on those moments at the end of the game. After the first down run, we’re still trying to gain more for the kick.”
According to Quinn, the play called for Daniels to connect with a receiver on the left side – it looked to be tight end Ben Sinnott – or immediately throw it away if he wasn’t open.
That didn’t happen. The ball was snapped with 12 seconds left and, instead of throwing it to Sinnott or out of bounds, Daniels moved around the backfield, never threw it away and was tackled as seconds ticked away. The Commanders frantically tried to clock it at that point – most of their receivers were down the field — but never got set before time expired.
The game ended in a shocking tie.
Daniels was asked after the game what he was supposed to do in that spot. His answer didn’t directly address that.
“We have to stop the clock,” Daniels said. “We have to know it’s an o-zone situation. We have to relay that as an offense. It starts from everybody, (from) the top down, but ultimately, it’s on me.”
Hindsight being what it is, Quinn said that play ever should’ve been run.
“The right call, honestly, is to clock it early and don’t put ourselves in that spot,” Quinn said. “That’s my responsibility, nobody else’s. I’m gutted for our team.”
That would’ve been the correct sequence. And, with as much time as was on the clock after White’s run, Quinn could’ve heard and killed that final play call and simply let kicker Drew Stevens try to end it with a field-goal from a makable distance even with wet conditions.
“We were trying to gain more (yards),” Quinn said. “We don’t need to. It’s easy enough to say, ‘let’s clock it right here.’”
The Commanders didn’t, and then the quarterback didn’t throw it away. It was a situation overcomplicated unnecessarily that very likely gave a win away.
“The sequencing of that does not fall on (Daniels),” Quinn said. “It’s an outside throw or a clock those are the two (options). Out-of-bounds throw or a clock, that has to come from me. I don’t have to put him in that spot. I can do that earlier. We can finish with a kick. We don’t need to gain more yards.”
Quinn calls performance under pressure “winning time moments,” and the Commanders thrived in those situations during a 2024 campaign that ended with a trip to the NFC title game.
The Commanders generally haven’t been good in those situations since, and were awful there at the end of Sunday’s game.
“Finding a way to nail that moment and that play – we have to do that 100 out of 100 times,” Quinn said. “That falls onto me.”
