There had been few things the Washington Commanders could count on through the first 11 quarters of a season already teetering on the brink of the NFL abyss before the calendar even turned to October. But on the biggest play of the young season — fourth-and-1, tie score, deep in the fourth quarter, the Commanders driving against the defending Super Bowl champions late Sunday afternoon — there was only one place for the ball to go.
At the top of the short list of sure things for the burgundy and gold is No. 17 on a simple slant route.
When veteran wideout Terry McLaurin hauled in that 5-yard pass from quarterback Marcus Mariota at Northwest Stadium, the Commanders’ season still had the faintest of heartbeats. When they kicked a field goal six plays later to take a slim lead on the Seattle Seahawks, it grew louder and steadier.
And when the final seconds ticked off their improbable, unimaginable 33-31 win — the final margin coming courtesy of linebacker Kain Medrano’s interception of a Sam Darnold pass and 50-yard return for a touchdown — that heartbeat sounded like a kick drum, threatening to burst out of the chests of every player sprinting off the Commanders’ sideline toward the celebration at the center of the field and of every waterlogged fan who endured a rainy and occasionally frustrating afternoon at the Commanders’ 2026 home opener.
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“This,” McLaurin said, “was an opportunity that was seized.”
McLaurin didn’t specify whether he was speaking about himself or his team, but either interpretation would have made sense. If this was a season-saving win for the Commanders, lifting them to 1-2 ahead of their Week 4 matchup in London against the Indianapolis Colts, it was a reaffirmation for McLaurin, whose puzzling disappearance in the opening losses at Philadelphia and Dallas was beginning to raise questions about how much the eighth-year veteran had left in the tank.
“I don’t lose faith in myself, and neither do my teammates,” said McLaurin, who had six catches Sunday for 77 yards and a touchdown, his first of the season. “I know the ball is going to come my way. It’s just about being consistent and making plays. Being a part of this team where they trust me to be a leader and playmaker, I just wanted to put that on display.”
Through those first 11 quarters of their 2026 season, the Commanders had more players carted off the field with serious injuries than they had signature moments. Last week at Dallas, it was franchise quarterback Jayden Daniels riding off with a redislocated elbow that resulted in veteran backup Mariota being pressed into duty this week. And on Sunday against the Seahawks, it was linebacker Leo Chenal, carted off with a neck injury that landed him in the hospital — part of a growing injury list that still threatens to derail this team.
“It’s hard to be 0-2,” Mariota said of the hole the Commanders had dug for themselves. “It’s easy to kind of cave in this early in the year. But these guys believed in each other.”
There was nothing in the Commanders’ 2026 resume to this point that suggested anything like this was possible. They had lost 12 of their past 14 games entering Sunday, while the Seahawks had won 12 of their past 13, including February’s throttling of New England in the Super Bowl. Seattle was an 8 ½-point favorite on the road, which somehow seemed to undersell their talent advantage and the potency of their world-class defense, particularly against a fill-in quarterback such as Mariota.
The best decision the Commanders made all week was to make sure they involved McLaurin to a much bigger degree in their offensive attack. The two-time All-Pro came into the game with just four catches and no touchdowns on the season. Against the Eagles, he had the same number of catches (two) as run-blocking tight end John Bates, and was targeted only four times.
But on Sunday, Mariota sent the ball McLaurin’s way early and often, and early in the third quarter they connected on a 20-yard touchdown that gave the Commanders a two-touchdown lead. The play was the perfect encapsulation of why chemistry matters — and how veterans sharing the same locker room for multiple years can develop an unspoken language only they understand.
As McLaurin lined up against Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe, he was supposed to run a 12-yard curl route.
But then — well, let McLaurin tell it:
“I beat [Jobe] so clean off the release, I ran the ‘go’ route,” he said. “Me and Marcus have enough time spent [together] to where I just trust he was going to see it, and he did. And he put the ball up where only I could get it. We don’t try to make a habit of going off-key, but we speak about being ballplayers out there, and when you get a clean release like that and you have a chance to get a big play, you want to capitalize on it.”
And all of a sudden, a season that seemed almost hopeless at the start of the weekend — with the Commanders already 0-2 in their division, having lost their starting quarterback for an undefined period, and with the defending champs arriving at Northwest Stadium — now contains a defined pathway to revived relevance.
The Commanders will travel to London as a team on Tuesday. Find a way to win there against the 1-2 Colts, and they would return to Northwest Stadium the following week at the break-even mark, with the New York Giants coming to town having lost their own quarterback, Jaxson Dart, for the season to a knee injury. At some point in there, the Commanders may even get Daniels back on the field, as he appears resolved to avoid surgery for now and is considered week to week.
The Commanders’ first-half schedule remains a beast — with clashes against the 49ers, Eagles and Rams waiting for them after the Giants game — but the back half, should they survive their early gauntlet, looks far less daunting.
The Commanders have big problems to address, particularly on the offensive line and secondary. They have an injury list that seems to grow in severity with each passing week.
But they still have No. 17, who as demonstrated on Sunday, still knows how to get into the end zone. They still have a quarterback they believe in, whether it’s Mariota suiting up again in London or Daniels. And somehow, after three cathartic weeks, they still have a heartbeat.
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