ASHBURN, Va. — The Washington Commanders are back to work after two losses in a row for the first time this season. Washington is now 7-4 on the season and welcome the struggling Dallas Cowboys to Northwest Stadium on Sunday. Dallas has lost five straight games heading into Sunday's matchup.
The Cowboys are also without starting quarterback Dak Prescott the rest of the season.
Commanders head coach Dan Quinn told reporters Wednesday there are lessons to be learned when a team goes through a tough stretch like the Commanders have after such a strong start to the season.
“Being battle tested is really important and it doesn’t happen during the easy moments. It happens during the hard moments and those are the ones you do have to go through," said Quinn. "It sucks when you’re going through them, but you do have go and OK, this is the finishing time ─ this is the finishing moment. Offensively, defensively, team ─ whatever that looks like. You have to stand up, talk the truth about it and then how do you work on to go get that part right.”
Washington is still comfortably in second place in the NFC East standings, but with three of the final six games against division opponents, this team knows they need to get back on track starting this Sunday.
"We’ve seen the good side and the bad side of wins and losses where we were really close or, hey we just fell short or, hey, we made it over the hump and put the game together," said running back Austin Ekeler. "Knowing what both of those feel like as a team, together, is great because we want to make sure we can do everything to prevent those things that we know we can when it comes to those losses."
Safety Quan Martin said, "You’re going to lose games in this league, that’s just the way it goes and it’s just about how you respond. I think we’ve got a great group of guys around and we understand the task at hand."