The Washington Commanders and the New York Giants played to the NFL’s first tie of the season, a 27-27 finish. The Commanders stunningly ran out of time in a complete meltdown at the end of the extra session. Here’s the final play:
The Commanders — who had no timeouts — were extremely casual, letting the clock run after the previous play. They had absolutely no reason to run the clock down, considering it was a next-score-wins situation. The blunder created a surreal scene: Giants defenders jumping for joy as if they had won, Commanders players slouched over in disbelief and Dan Quinn absolutely furious.
He has no one to blame but himself.
The play appeared to be a Jayden Daniels pass, but the quarterback never threw the ball and then went down. With eight seconds left when Daniels went down, Washington could not line up for a spike in time, a shocking failure for a team that was fortunate to be in the situation anyway. Again, Washington had no reason to even run any play other than a spike. In fact, they didn’t even need that. They could have simply had Drew Stevens attempt the game-winning kick from roughly 41 yards
How the Commanders ended up in this position
The Giants trailed 27-13 with less than eight minutes left in regulation before two Jameis Winston touchdown passes forced overtime. New York got the ball to start overtime and drove into Washington territory before Dominic Zvada missed a 46-yard field goal.
The Giants forced a quick three-and-out, though, and went on another long drive, this time in a next-score-wins scenario. The Giants were at the Washington 24-yard line — well inside Zvada’s range — but wanted to get closer, given that kicker Zvada had missed three field goals at that point. But Daron Payne punched the ball out from Cam Skattebo, an inexcusable mistake from the Giants’ running back.
Skattebo couldn’t have known it then, but it only turned out to be the second-worst mistake of the afternoon. The Commanders not knowing the situation is truly atrocious on every level — from Quinn to offensive coordinator David Blough to Daniels — and an absolute gut punch for a team that had hoped Daniels’ return from a dislocated elbow would provide a spark. Instead, it resulted in one of the most shocking errors anyone will see at the professional level and more scrutiny on Quinn and the entire organization.
The Giants (3-1-1) still lead the NFC East and, in fact, even gained a half-game on the field with the Cowboys and the Eagles both losing. The Commanders go to 1-3-1 in embarrassing fashion.
What Dan Quinn, Jayden Daniels said after game
Both Quinn and Daniels addressed the media after the game and took responsibility for the blunder.
“We all gotta do better situationally, football starts with me, everybody will say the same thing but we just gotta be better at situational football,” Daniels said. “We gotta stop the clock, we gotta know that it’s ‘o zone’ situation, we gotta relay that as an offense. It starts with everybody, top down, ultimately it’s on me.”
But Quinn took all the blame.
“After the first down run, still trying to gain more for the kick. Right call is honestly we can go clock it early and don’t put ourselves in that spot, and that’s my responsibility, nobody else’s.”
But if the initial goal was to get closer, Quinn made two mistakes. Washington ran its penultimate play — a two-yard Rachaad White carry — with 55 seconds left in overtime, more than enough time to run multiple more plays, even without a timeout. And again, this cannot be stressed this enough: Washington had no reason to run the clock down. The Giants weren’t going to get another possession if Stevens made his kick. And if it’s yards Washington wanted, there was no reason to take so long between White’s run and the final play, which started with 12 seconds left; even running any non-spike play at that point is risky.
Once the clock had run down so far, the final play was supposed to be a spike or a throwaway, Quinn said. Instead, it was neither.
“The sequencing of that does not fall on [Daniels],” Quinn said. “It’s an out-of-bounds throw or a clock. That has to come from me. I don’t even need to put him into that spot.”
