Daniels’s Injury Solidifies Careening Season for Commanders

The Commanders are collapsing.

The organization that produced one of the NFL’s most stunning turnarounds in the past few years, reaching the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 1991 last season, has suddenly found itself decimated by injuries with a 3–6 record.

Quarterback Jayden Daniels, who already missed three games this year with a sprained knee and hamstring injury, dislocated his elbow in gruesome fashion at the end of a blowout loss to the Seahawks. His timeline for return isn’t clear, but he’s expected to miss some games.

It’s an abrupt fall from grace for a team with years of momentum on and off the field.

In 2020, Washington had a culture problem. That year, the Washington Post published an article in which 15 former employees detailed sexual harassment during their time at the club and a toxic culture led by former owner Dan Snyder. (The NFL eventually fined Snyder $60 million after an investigation found he sexually harassed a team employee and withheld $11 million of revenue from the league.) The team removed the statue of a controversial former owner and changed its name to the Washington Football Team.

The franchise became the Commanders in 2022, and in 2023, Josh Harris took over as owner. In 2024, the Commanders hired coach Dan Quinn and drafted Heisman winner Daniels No. 2 overall from LSU. The team who had been 4–13 the year before burst onto the scene with its best season in decades, notching its first playoff win since the 2005 regular season. The Commanders lost in the NFC Championship Game to the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, and with a revived fanbase, looked expectantly toward Daniels’ sophomore season.

This season, things started off alright. In a huge off-the-field victory, a final vote from local lawmakers in September gave the Commanders official approval to move back to D.C. with a new $3.8 billion stadium partially funded by public dollars. Backup Marcus Mariota led the team well through two games of Daniels’s absence. By early October, the team had a 3–2 record.

Since then, Washington has lost four straight games. Some of its best wide receivers, Terry McLaurin and Noah Brown, have missed most of the season with injuries. Quinn is known for his defensive prowess, but his defense has allowed 3,400 yards this season, the third-worst tally in the league. Daniels’s injury—wholly avoidable as the team was down 38–7 with under eight minutes left in the game—seems to be the final nail in the coffin.

Where do the Commanders go from here?

For one, Washington D.C. Years of back-and-forth about a potential relocation has been settled, and the team can focus on building its new home on the old RFK Stadium site.

Regarding its quarterback, Quinn said he is “certain” the team will give Daniels the support on offense and defense to try to prevent injuries in the future. “The hamstring injury and tonight with an elbow, it’s really important we get that part right. And we will,” Quinn told reporters after the game.

In the meantime, the Commanders will probably hobble to the finish line, as half of its remaining games are against major playoff contenders (the Lions, Broncos, and Eagles twice). That means the team could make a move before the trade deadline on Tuesday afternoon. Looking ahead, its Christmas Day matchup against the divisional rival Cowboys should still draw a crowd for Netflix. And the team can think more about what it wants to offer its sensational yet injury-prone quarterback in a likely contract extension at the end of next season while trying to get everyone healthy for a more promising campaign next fall.

Washington still has its new owner, its franchise quarterback, its new stadium, its re-energized fans. The miraculous rebuild is still very much alive, if only paused at the moment for an injury intermission.