ARLINGTON, Texas — Three seconds left in the first half, down a touchdown, ball on the Dallas Cowboys’ one-yard line, the Washington Commanders, as NFL teams tend to do, opted to put the ball and their immediate fate in the hands of their best player. In that moment, before it all unraveled in gruesome, stomach-churning fashion, the decision to eschew the easy field goal and go for seven points behind quarterback Jayden Daniels was curious but defensible.
“We needed touchdowns,” Commanders coach Dan Quinn said on Sunday following the 37-20 loss. “I don’t regret the call.”
In the immediate aftermath of the elbow dislocation that ended Daniels’ game, if not a large chunk of his season, the first reaction was some combination of horror and sadness. On the Fox telecast, where the image of Daniels’ fateful joint in a state of grotesque contortion was replayed over and over, color commentator Tom Brady spoke for the entire sport when he blurted, “Oh, shit.”
The next instinct, though, was to assign blame. Quinn, some were quick to say, should have taken the easy points instead of gambling with the health of his franchise quarterback. Right guard Chris Paul should have taken greater care not to step on Daniels’ foot after the snap, as the latter was trying to backpedal into position to throw. Somebody, anybody, should have done something, anything.
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But that stance fails to account for one of the fundamental truths about the NFL: On any given play on any given Sunday, there are 22 human brains, 44 knees, 44 elbows and 220 fingers susceptible to all manner of violent mangling. Daniels’ injury — a non-fractured dislocation, similar to the one he suffered to the same elbow last November, eventually ending his 2025 season — was no more likely to have happened on the play in question than on any other of his 16 previous pass attempts Sunday, or the 718 previous ones in his career.
“Obviously, anytime someone is injured you play the ‘What if?’ game,” Quinn said. “I don’t think this is one of those times for me.”
In hindsight, the moments prior to Daniels’ latest injury — the 0-1 Commanders on the cusp of tying a game in which they had trailed at one point by two touchdowns, with the second-half kickoff coming their way, the home opener at Northwest Stadium still a week away — were the last moments when there was still something resembling real, tangible hope for this Commanders season.
After a slow start in the Week 1 loss at Philadelphia, where the Commanders lost a winnable game thanks to a handful of crushing mistakes, Daniels was back to playing the way he did in 2024, when he was the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year and the Commanders were unlikely entrants in the NFC championship game. He was 11 of 16 for 96 passing yards and a touchdown as he awaited the snap at the end on the last play of Sunday’s first half, with another 69 yards on the ground.
He was electric. He was decisive with the ball. For the first time, he seemed to have a mastery of the new offense installed by first-year coordinator David Blough. He had put in the work to not only get back on the field after last year’s slog, but to be back at his best. And now, he was reaping the rewards.
But to see Daniels writhing on the turf at the end of the first half, his teammates kneeling around him, the medical cart summoned from the bowels of the stadium, was to see the beginning of the end.
By the time this slugfest ended, the Commanders’ injury report was bloated with names, and the reality of their plight was painfully obvious. At 0-2, with the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks awaiting them next Sunday, they still have 88% of their season to play, and there is no telling how much of it, if any, will feature Daniels as their signal-caller. At least for the short term, prepare to see a lot of veteran backup Marcus Mariota under center.
“They’re definitely hurting for him,” Quinn said of his squad’s reaction to Daniels’ injury. “But … we will rally so hard around Marcus until Jayden is back. That’s what’s required, and that’s what we’ll do. And I expect our posture and attitude to reflect that.”
Mariota, a five-year starter earlier in his career and the man who finished out the 2025 season for the Commanders, might be absolutely fine as Daniels’ replacement, but he can’t do anything about the porous Washington secondary that Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (who is now 13-2 in his career against the Commanders) carved up for 279 passing yards and four touchdowns, or the porous Washington offensive line that was already short-handed before starting guard Sam Cosmi suffered a brutal blow to the head that landed him in concussion protocol.
At a certain point, the questions about what happened to Daniels on Sunday are less about the position the Commanders placed him in and more about Daniels himself: Will he ever make it through another NFL season unscathed? Can this franchise count on him in the long term?
He has played three games at AT&T Stadium in his career now, and he has failed to finish any of them. When will be the fourth? What gruesome end will be awaiting him then? And whose fault will it be that time?
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