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John Keim
ASHBURN, Va. — Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn said he felt the team’s potential was dismissed early this season, but his response revealed a mindset that has helped it reach the NFC Championship Game on Sunday.
After a season-opening 37-20 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Quinn said an acquaintance told him, “Hang in there. It’s going to be a long time.”
“I was like, Hey F you, that’s not how it’s going to go down,” Quinn said. “It wasn’t disrespect, it was dismissiveness, and I felt some kind of way. …It was we’re going to be a lot better than what we just showed today. And eventually we’ll show that. So not to prove it to everybody else or underdog stories, it’s how we get down.”
And how they got down after that loss was to win 12 of the next 16 regular-season games as well as their first two playoff contests on the road. It’s why the Commanders (14-5) will play at the Philadelphia Eagles (15-3) at 3 p.m. Sunday for a berth in the Super Bowl.
Yet the Commanders still wonder if the outside world believes in their success.
Rookie corner Mike Sainristil said outsiders have missed “just how dominant we really are. I think we’re underestimated because teams just might think that they’re better than us or we’re a newer team. [But] whatever the outside noise is, it doesn’t matter to us.”
He then looked at a slogan painted on the wall that reads: “Anybody. Anywhere. Anytime.”
“We believe in who we say we are and that’s all that matters,” Sainristil said.
Washington wasn’t considered a title contender entering the season — and perhaps not deep into the season — after going 4-13 a year ago. The Commanders also have a new power structure with Quinn and first-time general manager Adam Peters in addition to a rookie quarterback in Jayden Daniels.
Washington had not won a playoff game since the 2005 season. It had not won 11 games in a regular season since 1991. That’s also the last year the franchise has reached the conference championship. It had more name changes than playoff wins since 2006.
It added up to skepticism that a turnaround could occur this quickly.
“At some point I’m sure people will start believing in us,” Washington safety Jeremy Chinn said, “and we’ll have that same chip on our shoulder. It is the way that we come into work every single day, the guys in this building, the people in this building, the way we show up to work, people can say whatever they want outside. We know who we have in here and who we are.”
But safety Jeremy Reaves, with the organization since 2018, said the Commanders weren’t motivated by doubts.
“Outside noise can be a false narrative,” he said. “When you have that confidence within that’s what transcends everybody in the building. … Everybody just had that belief. There was no false motivation from external factors.”
They upset Tampa Bay 23-20 in the first round on a last-second field goal. They beat Detroit 45-31 in a raucous environment at Ford Field. Washington has won seven consecutive games — five of them occurring on the last play of the game or its final play from scrimmage.
They’ve done it behind Daniels, who has thrown a combined 29 touchdown passes in the regular season and playoffs. In two postseason games, he’s thrown four touchdown passes and no interceptions — he tossed only nine in the regular season. He has an NFL-best 86.8 quarterback rating in the postseason.
Now he’s trying to become the first rookie quarterback to lead a team to the Super Bowl. There have been five others who lost in the conference championship.
“He’s got rare, in the moment skills that have allowed us to be into this spot,” Quinn said. “When it’s mental chaos going down and two minutes, in these tight moments where it could feel that tight, he’s got the experience of somebody that’s played a lot more football than a first-year player. But we don’t get into the historical stuff, man. It’s just how do we get down this weekend?”
The historical part will be Washington overcoming nearly three decades of futility. From 1992, the season after the franchise won its last Super Bowl, through 2023 Washington owned the NFL’s fourth-worst winning percentage.
But in Quinn’s first meeting with his players last spring, receiver Terry McLaurin said he told them, “If you’re a dog-ass competitor this is the place for you.”
“I sat up in my seat and smiled,” said McLaurin, with the team since 2019. “That’s what I’ve been itching for.”
That’s why, despite having long ago proved outsiders wrong with how it’s played this season, the Commanders aren’t content.
“Nobody is celebrating,” McLaurin said. “The job is not done.”