The Washington Commanders had a chance to win Sunday's game against the New York Giants, but were left to deal with a tie after failing to get off a potential game-winning field goal in overtime. Head coach Dan Quinn took responsibility for the outcome while also addressing the defense's struggles and Jayden Daniels' performance in his return.
Here's everything Quinn said following the game.
“Let’s get rolling. With the team, I thought this was a hard-fought game to the wire. Leaving tonight with a tie feels like a loss. And the last sequence, we throw it out of bounds, we clock it, you give yourself a chance to kick it. We pride ourselves on those moments at the end of the game. After the first-down run, still trying to gain more for the kick, the right call is honestly we can go clock it early and don’t put ourselves in that spot. That is my responsibility, nobody else’s. I’m gutted for our team. We were given a lot of opportunities tonight to go find our win, all three phases, and we did not seize them. I thought Payne had an incredible play in overtime, the forced fumble to give ourselves a chance to go back the other way. But like I said, finding a way to nail that moment of that play, we have to do that 100 out of 100 times. And so that falls on me.”
Was Jayden just supposed to throw the ball away out of bounds on that play?“Yeah, the sequencing of that does not fall on him. It’s an outside throw or a clock. Those are the two, an out-of-bounds throw or a clock. And that has to come from me. I don’t have to put him into that spot. I can do that earlier and we can finish the kick early. We don’t need to gain more yards. So that’s on me.”
Why not just spike the ball?“No, we’re just trying to gain more. We don’t need to. It’s easy enough to say, ‘Hey man, let’s clock it right here. We’re early enough. Go get it.’”
Was Jayden aware that there were no timeouts left?“[Opening words unclear.] But like I said, that falls on me, Nikki. He executes what we need to do, and I don’t need to put him in that space at all. This is how we’ve got to go down. We don’t need to gain more. Let’s go win it right here.”
“Just frustrated. I’m gutted for our team, and that’s the hardest part. Like I said, leaving tonight with a loss — I mean, with a tie feels like a loss. We had plenty of chances to do things to have a lead and get it into overtime. That’s a whole other discussion, but having the awareness, I thought he made some incredible plays and showed why he is so unique. But at the end, I can make life easy there. Man, go get it. Hit it.”
Dan, you get Jayden from the start to the end of the game. Overall, how did you think he played?“Yeah, it was awesome to have him back on the field. The small things that won’t show up, Barry, on the stat sheet, is him at the line of scrimmage killing a run from one direction to another versus a blitz. Him demonstrating the ability to use his legs when he needs to and not forcing that. So those are a few of the things. And then when it gets into the crunch-time moments, you look at Terry, deliver the ball in the right location, and same thing to [name unclear]. So I thought for somebody that’s missed time, I thought he played sharp.”
Dan, the defense only allowed about six points through most of the third quarter, and then three straight drives of touchdowns. It’s kind of similar to last week where you limited the Colts and then they scored at the end. Without watching the tape already, what’s your sense of why there was a collapse again this week?“Yeah, we have dug in hard on the response, and there was a number early on, a penalty or something that took us out, to go answer on the response. And as it got more into, they’re down two and hurrying up, that’s the spot that we’ve got to go close it out. It wasn’t the early half of first-, second-down running plays, passes. [Portion unclear.] So having the ability to not allow them to scramble to make the plays, that’s a big deal. And at tight end and receiver, they’ve got premium players, but we have to be able to answer and shut that down. No question about it.”
“Yeah, I want to go and look to find. I want to make sure the pre-snap ones that were early are getting corrected. That was the top of the pile for me to find it. But until I watch them, I can’t give you my assessment of that yet.”
You guys had a bunch of injuries, especially in the secondary. How did you think you were able to overcome that to maybe hide some potential weaknesses with guys out?“Yeah, going into the week, it was challenging from an injury standpoint when we got back late and then going into Monday of who would be available, what that would look like. And I thought the team did a really good job of knowing who may or may not be available at receiver and safety. [Answer cuts off in the YouTube transcript.]”
How frustrating is it that you couldn’t execute that situation after preparing for it?“Yeah, 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. And that falls on me, Dave. I’ve got to make sure, as much as we hit it, we’ve got to hit it more. It stings today bad because you don’t get those moments back. Here’s a game that’s going the other way, and we’ve got a chance to flip the script. So I want to make sure that’s a scar that has to be permanent, making sure this is a situation, a scenario that would never present itself again.”
Kind of going off Dave’s question there, if it’s something that you guys have drilled and you are prepared, Jayden Daniels stood up there and said that as much. How do you fix that in practice?“More of it. Honestly, that’s the space to go back to. We track every situation that we do. We do them in walkthroughs. We do them in practice. We do two-minute every week. So we’ll continue to do that. The results for today weren’t what I was looking for at the end of the game, and we’ll dig into that as hard as we can. But the responsibility is mine alone to make sure our team’s ready to go.”
Dan, just watching that end of the game and the clock ticking down, what’s going through your head in that moment?“Well, knowing that we don’t have timeouts, I’m wanting just to get the ball clocked. And so as the time’s going down, it’s not a good feeling knowing that this moment’s going to be slipping through our fingers.”
I did want to ask about the Amik Robertson pass interference at the goal line. I don’t know what you thought of it live or if you’ve had a chance to look at it, but certainly a big call.“Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. It was a big call, but I haven’t had a chance to view it yet.”
Dan, obviously the defense has struggled in the second half of games. You guys were up two touchdowns late in the game. I know everybody’s talking about what happened at the end of overtime, but what role did the defense in the second half play in how this game got away from you guys?“Significant role in the fourth quarter. No question about it. You want to see us respond, even when, okay, it’s within one score, go answer, shut the door and try to get ourselves into a four-minute mode. I do recognize how hard the guys battled, even toward the last play, to say, ‘Okay, this is desperation time to get the ball out.’ But to not have the ability to close it down, that’s what you have to do. You have to go shut the door in that spot, and we did not.”
Dan, as you mentioned, while this goes down as a tie, there’s an emotional weight with this game that makes it feel like a loss, particularly given how it happened. How does the team move forward from this?“We will. They’ve been through a lot already in five games, and the locker room, this is a tough team. Having gone through adversity in these games, it doesn’t make it any better, but they are equipped to absolutely dig in and get rolling. Our practices of what we want to do to get ready, they’ve shown a lot of resilience. Those are the ones we’ve had to lean into our roster a good bit so far in this first part of the season, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Going back to the last play, you mentioned you shouldn’t have put them in that position to get those extra yards. How much discussion in the headset was there about not doing it, and whose call was it ultimately?“Oh yeah, ultimately mine. We’re at the right spot. I’ve got to go nail it.”
Quinn made it clear the final sequence falls on him, but Washington's problems went beyond the final seconds. The Commanders now have to figure out how to finish games after letting another fourth-quarter lead get away. His full presser is below.
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