What’s wrong with the Commanders? Why Washington is struggling and why turnaround might not be coming

Dan Quinn didn’t have to say much after the Commanders‘ 44-22 loss to the Cowboys to send a message.

Is he surprised by where his 3-4 Commanders stand so far this season?

“Yes. Very.”

And what of that sequence before halftime, in which the Cowboys followed a Commanders touchdown by going 72 yards in just four plays and 35 seconds to score a touchdown of their own?

“Words cannot explain. I was hot.”

Perhaps that sequence best encapsulates the Commanders right now. One step forward comes with two steps back. The players, Quinn admitted, are mad, too. But they were also mad after a 25-24 “Monday Night Football” loss to the Bears in which the offense committed three turnovers and the defense got shredded on the ground.

Anger, it turns out, only goes so far. The Commanders are struggling on both sides of the ball with a plethora of issues, some solvable, others potentially not, and not looking anything like the team that went to the NFC Championship Game last year.

A 3-4 record is not a death sentence. But this is no regular 3-4 record. Washington lost Jayden Daniels to a hamstring injury that will require an MRI on Monday. Though Quinn was adamant this loss was not a product of any injuries, the Commanders were already down their top three wide receivers — Terry McLaurin, Deebo Samuel and Noah Brown — and have lost several other key players, too. A look at the schedule shows things only get harder.

A team making a conference championship game one year and completely missing the postseason the next is not that uncommon. In fact, the Bengals did it just last season. The Commanders are running out of time to avoid the same fate, and for some of the same reasons.

Defense has crumbled

The gist of the Commanders defense is pretty simple. If the pass rush can have an impact, the unit as a whole can survive. If it can’t, the secondary can’t hold up.

Safety Quan Martin is allowing 24.9 yards per target as the primary defender, which is 6.6 yards higher than anyone else who has been the primary defender on at least 20 passes this season. These are not always perfect metrics, but one can see Martin as the primary defender on this CeeDee Lamb touchdown …

… one week after he was the primary defender (and the one who missed the tackle) on this 55-yarder to D’Andre Swift.

This is not to bash Martin, but rather illustrate a larger point: The Commanders are giving up far too many big plays. Washington has allowed five passes of 50+ yards this season, most in the NFL. Both of the clips above are in that category. They’ve also allowed 14 passes of 25+ yards, tied for fourth-most in the NFL.

“It’s very frustrating,” Quinn said. “We’re gonna look at everything, man. We are going to look at everything.”

He won’t be hard-pressed to find issues, but he might be hard-pressed to find solutions. Cornerbacks Marshon Lattimore and Mike Sainristil are struggling.

• Lattimore has allowed 15 receptions that result in first downs, tied for fifth-most among all cornerbacks. His 14.9 yards allowed per completion is also among the position’s worst, and his six defensive penalties are tied for second-most by any player in the NFL.
• Sainristil has two interceptions but has also allowed two touchdowns and 13 receptions resulting in first downs.

Lattimore is a major disappointment considering all the Commanders moved to acquire him at last year’s trade deadline. He missed significant time last year with a hamstring injury and struggled when he was on the field, and he is struggling again this year. When the cornerbacks and safeties are struggling, it’s tough to get stops.

Rush defense up and down

Washington’s rush defense had a very strong start to the season but has struggled since. From Weeks 1-4, the Commanders allowed 3.6 yards per carry, the sixth-best rate in the league. In three weeks since, they are allowing 5.3 yards per carry, fifth-worst in the league. Sunday, Washington allowed 152 yards on 31 carries, with Javonte Williams rumbling for 116 yards on just 19 carries.

Washington has been a poor tackling team all season, and that has resulted in opponents averaging 3.1 yards per carry after contact, a bottom-10 rate among all defenses.

Similar to the Lattimore situation, Washington was hoping things would be much improved this year. The team brought in several free agents to improve the depth. But injuries have worn away that depth, and the group is getting pushed around.

Jayden Daniels’ performance and the impact of the injuries around him

It’d be easy see the 3-4 record and point to Daniels. It would also be inaccurate. Many of Daniels’ numbers are similar to what they were last year. Yes, his completion percentage is down, but he’s been the victim of the NFL’s highest drop rate (8.2%); in fact, his off-target throw rate is down. He has a lower yards per attempt this year, but it’s not drastically lower. He has a lower negative play rate and interception rate this year than he did last year. His scrambling numbers aren’t vastly different.

Daniels has played 203 plays this season. He has had his top three wideouts — McLaurin, Samuel and Brown — on the field for 32 of them. McLaurin’s absence for the last four games has been particularly noticeable, as Washington is having trouble getting the downfield and intermediate passing game going. After completing 61% of his throws 10-20 yards downfield last year, Daniels is down to 48% this year. It’s just not as well-versed of a passing attack, and teams are beginning to play more aggressively knowing they don’t have to worry about dangerous weapons on the outside. 

Regression hitting hard

More than anything, the Commanders, who brought back a similar team in many areas, have regressed to the mean. Last year, Washington was sixth in third-down conversion rate. It is 25th this year. Last year, Washington converted 87% of its fourth downs, one of the highest rates on record. This year, it is at 56%, slightly below average.

When you live in the small margins like that — and the NFL is full of small margins — slight variances happen. The Commanders went 8-4 in one-possession games last year. They are 0-2 this year. Last year’s defense was actually worse than this year’s defense on a down-by-down basis, but this year’s struggles preventing big plays far outweigh the down-to-down improvement. The offense, on the other hand, is committing the wrong type of big plays — turnovers (eight this year, 14 all of last year) — at a much, much higher rate.

If Martin makes that tackle on Swift or Daniels doesn’t fumble on a third and 1, the Commanders are 4-3, and this article doesn’t exist. In a season of thousands of plays, a handful here or there make massive differences, and this year, the Commanders haven’t made those plays in crucial times.

There’s also regression in the injury department — Washington had the fifth-best injury luck last year, per Aaron Schatz’s Adjusted Games Lost — and the schedule. Washington isn’t playing the schedule of the second-worst team in the NFL this year. When they have played those teams, they’ve won.

But the “easier” part of the season is already over, and now the Commanders embark on a brutal three-week stretch: at the Chiefs, against the Seahawks, against the Lions. There’s no place to hide, no “get-right” game. Their quarterback is injured for the second time this year, and his supporting cast has been injured essentially all year.

“It doesn’t matter who you have or who is out when you don’t give yourself a real chance at it,” Quinn said. “From turnover margin to penalties to missed tackles and drops, Dallas beat us, and we beat ourself as well. We’re the ones that got ourself into the hole, and we’re the same ones that gotta dig ourself out, but make no mistake, we’re not playing to the standard we’ve set.”