LANDOVER, Md. — Postgame locker rooms say a lot about a team. Victorious ones, especially after a big game, are jubilant, with grown men pouring water on heroes and jumping up and down with childlike joy. Enough to put a smile on anyone’s face. Defeated locker rooms feel solemn, with the vibrancy of the room replaced by tension and frustration.
And then there are locker rooms like the Washington Commanders’ as Sunday night spilled into Monday morning. It was, in large swaths, empty. Several players had already left by the time media members were allowed to enter. Other players filed in late. Some departed and returned.
The cause for all the comings and goings? Jayden Daniels, who was not far away in the bowels of Northwest Stadium after suffering a gruesome elbow injury late in the game. As if a disastrous 38-14 loss to the Seahawks wasn’t enough, the face of the franchise and the leader of a football resurgence in the nation’s capital was hurt, the cruelest twist of the knife in a season full of them.
“It just f—ing hurt, like honestly, it hurt, like you can feel that right now,” said Josh Johnson, the veteran backup quarterback speaking slightly louder than a whisper. “Everybody’s shocked. Everybody’s stunned a little bit.
“That’s the best I got for you,” he said, mustering a weary half-laugh.
“It’s really tough to see him go down,” said Bobby Wagner, one of Daniels’ closest friends on the team, the veteran and the youngster united by their southern California roots, trash talk and basketball. “… This is pray time. This is pray, and let him feel the emotions that he’s feeling and just send a lot of positivity out there.”
Then there was Zach Ertz, the veteran tight end whose career Daniels has helped revive. He used one word to describe how he was feeling. “Distraught,” before adding, “I care about Jayden the person much more than the player. The player’s phenomenal, like I’ve said, one of best players in the league, but for me I care about the person. He’s meant so much to me, our relationship.”
Coach Dan Quinn said he didn’t think about taking Daniels out before the ill-fated drive. The Commanders trailed 38-7 when Daniels trotted onto the field for what would be his final drive of the night. Without two of his top three wide receivers, Daniels had found little downfield all night. With his offensive line often struggling, he had taken plenty of hits. Washington had, for all intents and purposes, given up on winning the game; the offense was not in hurry-up mode or trying to attack through the air.
“Obviously I’m just gutted by it, I’m just bummed,” Quinn said. “We didn’t have any read plays on it, and the one he was injured on is usually a run or a throw to the flat. It’s not a scramble. It wasn’t a designed read or play into that spot. If we run it 50 times, it’s either a handoff or a throw 50 times.”
That’s the type of season it has been for Washington. The aspects that shouldn’t happen, that couldn’t happen, that don’t happen for the team to be successful have all happened. The offense has been ravaged by injuries. The defense has become a discombobulated mess. Seattle’s Sam Darnold was 16 for 16 for 282 yards and four touchdowns in the first half, becoming the first quarterback since at least 1990 to throw for 250 yards and four touchdowns while completing all his passes in a single half.
“For us to have issues that allowed them to have that night are stunning,” Quinn said. “We couldn’t stop them, and we completely stopped ourself. I’m furious, obviously.”
Even then, though, there was the hope that Daniels provides, even if not this season but for the long term. He had already missed three games this season, two for an ankle injury and one for a hamstring. He’s been hurt on sacks and scrambles. But this is the first time he’s been hurt in a completely unwinnable game; teams down 31 or more in the fourth quarter are 0-464. It all felt so … empty. There’s that word again.
Can this team protect him? Can it provide the support he needs, both defensively and offensively, so he isn’t consistently having to chase games or feel the weight of the offense squarely on his shoulders? The 54% pressure rate he faced Sunday night was the highest in his career. The second-highest (49%) came against the Packers in Week 2, when he suffered the ankle injury. That’s no coincidence.
“I think the answer to that is we will give him the support to do that,” Quinn said. “And I’m certain of that, to make sure we do that in every single way. And that’s … offense, defense, the whole way through, man. I absolutely feel that way on the hamstring injury and tonight with an elbow. It’s really important we get that part right, and we will.”
But they won’t — or they can’t, however you’d like to phrase it — this year. That is the brutally disappointing truth about a brutally disappointing football team. The oldest team in the NFL looks the part. Quinn has tried altering personnel to try to get more speed on the field and simplifying the calls to get his players playing faster. It worked for one half in Week 8 against Kansas City before it fell apart. It never fell apart Monday night because it was a disaster from the start. There are no easy answers. There might not be any answers, period, this season.
“Last week I thought we took two steps forward, and tonight three steps back,” Quinn said. “And that’s a terrible recipe.”
On the offensive side, Terry McLaurin, 30, had not missed a game in four years. He has now missed five this year with a troubling (and troublesome, considering his age) quad injury. Noah Brown hasn’t played since Week 2. The offensive line has been inconsistent. The running game has fallen apart.
The Commanders were, arguably, always due to regress. A little less close-game luck. A little less injury luck. A little fall off from an aging roster. A big jump in schedule difficulty. They tried to fight that off. They tried to elevate Daniels’ surroundings with left tackle Laremy Tunsil and right tackle Josh Conerly Jr. and wide receiver Deebo Samuel. They tried to fortify the defensive front and the secondary.
It has failed. That’s the fickle nature of football and roster building. The surprise players who helped propel the Commanders to their first NFC Championship Game in over 30 years last year haven’t made the same impact this year. The foundational pieces have been hurt or underachieved.
Washington, now 3-6 and without its starting quarterback, is playing out the string. It’s a stunning fall, one no player or coach will admit. They will talk, and did talk, about what’s needed to turn the season around, about stepping up with their quarterback down.
But this season has exposed major flaws, and Daniels’ latest injury has highlighted it in bold, red ink for all to see. There is a long way to go, for Daniels and for the organization. The shock and the sorrow came Sunday night. The questions will linger, up and down the roster, the coaching staff and the front office, for weeks and months to come.