There is only one possible silver lining to facing down a 31-point deficit in the fourth quarter of a football game, and that is the opportunity to get your young, recently injured franchise quarterback off the field before anything bad can happen to him. Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn failed to understand this during Sunday night's 38-14 loss to the Seahawks, and now another football season in Washington, D.C. has died in the dirt.
With 12:30 left in the game, Quinn kept starting quarterback Jayden Daniels in and watched him drive the Commanders down the field in pursuit of a meaningless consolation score. On the 10th play of the drive, Daniels faked a handoff at the Seahawks' 2-yard line and took off for the end zone. He was sacked while sprinting to his right, and reportedly dislocated his elbow as he hit the ground. The replay angle of the injury is fairly gruesome, so view it at your own risk.
After the game, Quinn did his best to shift any blame off his own shoulders. He told reporters that the play Daniels was injured on was not a designed QB run, and was supposed to result in either a handoff or a pass into the flat. "If we run [that play] 50 times, it's either a handoff or a throw 50 times," he said.
That's all well and good, but Quinn's explanation ignores the fact that Daniels shouldn't have been running any plays at that point, because football is a violent sport that is particularly dangerous to undersized quarterbacks. When such a quarterback is the only thing keeping your historically inept franchise out of the slop, it's generally a good idea to be careful with him.
Thanks to Quinn, the worst-case scenario for Daniels's second year in the league has now come true. Even as he was tearing up defenses and leading his team to a shocking conference title game appearance during his rookie year, a voice that could not be quieted remained in the back of everyone's heads: He's too tiny to be doing all that. That voice got louder when knee and hamstring injuries caused him to miss several starts this season, and it is now screaming in the aftermath of last night's game. A franchise that has recently seen one supposed renaissance snuffed out by an injury to an ascendant young quarterback should be more careful with the one it currently employs.
The Commanders are 3-6 and facing down a back half of the season defined by dread and regret. But hey, here's something: They scored on the play right after Daniels was injured, and Quinn got those meaningless seven points he was after. Doesn't that make you feel better?
