ASHBURN, Va. — After months of recalibrating the Washington Commanders from the front office to the bottom of the roster, there was a lot of goodwill in stock between the team and its fan base.
Following the Commanders’ 37-20 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, however, some are already beginning to lose faith after suffering through decades of high hopes followed by the lowest disappointments.
But Quinn says there’s reason for Washington fans to keep the faith with this group, and hold onto the excitement that’s been brewing throughout the summer.
“You want your identity to come through and that gets forged in the tough times, not in the easy moments,” says Quinn. “Like I said, ‘Doing hard ‘stuff’ with good people…that’s not in OTAs and that’s not in training camp, it’s now. And having gone through tough days (when) you don’t tackle as well, you don’t play as well on third down on either side, those are the things that you look back on later and say, ‘That game was tough. That’s where we had to fight through together to get things right.’”
It’s going to take all of the Commanders, the full 70-man roster as Quinn puts it, to effectively move past this tough time and find better ones in the near future.
But rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels is the one that most eyes will be fixed on in Week 2 and for the foreseeable future. He’s also one of the few players coming out of Week 1 with mostly positive reviews, including one from coach Quinn himself.
“I think number one, we knew this going in, but this is a guy who's got a great voice. And (getting) through the progressions, where to go, where to look, he's an absolutely rare competitor,” Quinn said of Daniels. “So for his first outing, to go against a good tough unit, I thought that's exactly the type of environment you want to put him in a tough spot against tough people. And he did not blink.”
Having a quarterback that coach and teammates alike can count on takes care of the biggest hurdle an NFL team trying to fully establish its identity faces. It also makes getting through the tough times a little bit easier.
So, with three days of practice coming this week, Washington will set out seeking to get through this tough time and turn it into better ones with a win in its home opener against the New York Giants this Sunday at 1 p.m. ET inside the newly named, Northwest Stadium.