It’s hard to look at the Washington Commanders this year and not start to feel a sense of … lingering loss. Which sounds melodramatic, sure, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
We’re not quite ready to write the obituary on the 2025 season just yet, but it’s getting pretty close with a 3-5 record and a murderer’s row of games coming up.
Leading the way in terms of letting down the team and its fans has been second year quarterback Jayden Daniels, who has fallen flat in his sophomore campaign after taking the NFL by storm as a rookie.
Daniel has struggled enough that Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon singled him out as the team’s “Biggest Disappointment” through the first 2 months of the regular season.
“The 2024 Offensive Rookie of the Year has also fallen in 2025,” Gagnon wrote. “It’s not quite ‘sophomore slump’ territory just yet, but his completion rate is down eight points and his QBR has sunk by more than 16. Knee and hamstring injuries have been a big factor, though.”
While Daniels will be back in the lineup for a Week 9 home game against the Seattle Seahawks, he’s already missed 3 games so far this season — 2 due to a sprained PCL and 1 game due to a hamstring injury, with the latest being a 28-7 Week 8 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Daniels Took NFL by Storm in 2024
There was no bigger story in the NFL last season than the spectacular play of Daniels and the Commanders, who bounced back from a 3-14 record in 2023 and watched the No. 2 overall pick lead them too a 12-5 regular season record and the NFC Championship Game.
Along the way, Daniels authored one of the greatest regular season endings in NFL history with the “Hail Maryland” victory over the Chicago Bears in Week 8 and he set an NFL rookie record with 891 rushing yards.
Unfortunately for Daniels, this is still one of the worst run franchises in the NFL. Shaking off over 30 years of miserable luck wasn’t quite as easy as it seemed on the surface.
If the 2025 season is truly lost, the Original Sin will always be not cutting a deal with NFL All-Pro wide receiver Terry McLaurin in the first week of March instead of the last week of August and costing him and Daniels an entire offseason and training camp of work together.
It’s injuries to those 2 that have caused the season to go off the rails. McLaurin is about to miss his fifth game of the season with a quad injury and has been a shell of the player he was last season when he set the franchise record with 13 receiving touchdowns — all despite signing a 3-year, $97 million contract extension.
Daniels Might Still Bounce Back in Big Way
There’s still a chance Daniels might get back to form and save the season fo the Commanders.
There’s one school of thought that says if Washington can find a way to go 9-8 there might be an NFC Wild Card spot waiting for them. The Commanders have another home game against another NFC contender in Week 10 against the Detroit Lions.
Sweep those 2 games and anything is possible.
“Everyone’s forgetting how well Jayden Daniels‘ played last year,” 106.7 FM The Fan D.C. Sports Radio wrote on its official X account. “If he returns to that level, they beat Seattle and Detroit. Can last year’s guy show up? It could change everything.”
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