ASHBURN, Va. — Rivalries run deep in football, and the Washington Commanders are getting ready to battle in a regional rivalry against the Baltimore Ravens this Sunday.
It may not be as heated an on-field battle as Commanders vs. Dallas Cowboys can get, but it’s a fight both sides want to win - and both fan bases want bragging rights from - nonetheless.
Washington long-snapper Tyler Ott and punter Tress Way know a thing or two about battling in rivalries. The two were opponents in high school, long before their NFL days together, and Ott told WUSA9’s Chick Hernandez that his first thought when he realized that by signing with the Commanders he’d be joining forces with Way was, “That I beat him in the State Championship game in 2007.”
Of course, he said it with a smile and tongue firmly planted in his cheek, as we do when telling jokes. Even if they are based in reality.
In that reality, Ott’s team did actually beat Way’s in high school - and the long-snapper did send his first text to the punter after agreeing to terms with Washington this offseason.
“My first reaction was I knew - without throwing shade, the specialist world is small - we knew the struggles that he had gone through snapper-wise the year before. So my first text to him was, ‘I'm going to come and make your life a little more relaxing,’” Ott shared with Hernandez. “And he called me immediately. So he was like, ‘Are you saying what I think you're saying?’ So we hit it off great from the start. He's a pro. It's been great working with him. It's easy with him.”
What’s not easy is setting records. Especially ones nobody really wants to set.
In Week 2 of the 2024 NFL season, the Commanders earned a 21-18 win over their NFC East Division rival New York Giants, but that wasn’t three touchdowns and extra points they scored.
Instead, newly signed kicker Austin Seibert nailed his first seven field goal tries as a member of the franchise, and he did it less than a week after joining the team. It’s now the franchise record for field goals in a single game, and Way and Ott had to make sure they got their parts right so Seibert could do his.
“In the moment, it was just like, ‘Man, this is a busy workday,’ and Tress and I were like, ‘You think we're going to punt?’ And then little did we know that it would go two weeks without a punt.”
The Commanders have punted more in the past two weeks after going two without one, and Ott has settled into his role with the team in the process.
Of course, with that regional rivalry game against the Ravens coming up this Sunday, there’s hope that the entire trio of Way, Ott, and Seibert will get to sit back and watch most of the game, outside of a handful of extra points and kickoffs.