Commanders Clips
Marcus Mariota will be the Commanders’ starting quarterback for whatever games Jayden Daniels misses with his left elbow injury. And Mariota and Daniels will both be team captains for the rest of the season.
Commanders coach Dan Quinn announced on Friday that the five Commanders who were chosen as team captains before the season got together and decided they want Mariota to be a captain, not just while he’s the starting quarterback but also when he returns to the No. 2 job when Daniels returns.
“I thought it was such a cool thing: The captains huddled up with me earlier in week and said, ‘We’d like to make Marcus our sixth captain,’” Quinn said. “I thought, What a great tribute of brotherhood of those guys asking. They were all as on board as you could imagine. I thought it was awesome, too. What a great example of teammate and leadership.”
The Commanders say Mariota’s status as captain for the rest of the season is not an indication that he’ll be starting for long, as the team expects Daniels to be back soon. But even if Mariota spends most of the season on the bench, he’ll have the captain’s C on his jersey.
In addition to Mariota and Daniels, the Commanders’ captains are wide receiver Terry McLaurin, linebacker Frankie Luvu, safety Jeremy Reaves and punter Tress Way.
Eight teams entered Week 3 at 0-2. One of them — the Falcons — avoided an 0-3 start. For the others, it becomes imperative to avoid starting the year with three straight losses.
In NFL history, only seven teams have made the playoffs after starting 0-3. The group includes the 2025 Texans, the 2018 Texans, the 1998 Bills, the 1995 Lions, the 1992 Chargers, the 1982 Buccaneers, and the 1981 Jets.
Only the ’92 Chargers made it to the postseason after starting 0-4.
It’s easier now than it once was, thanks to 17 regular-season games and seven playoff spots per conference. It’s still not easy.
For starters, plenty of teams that start 0-3 do so for a very good reason — they’re not very good. Those that are have a reduced margin for error over the final 14 games.
This year, one game features two 0-2 teams: the Texans at the Colts. The other winless teams are the Dolphins, the Titans, the Chargers, the Commanders, and the Buccaneers.
Sam Darnold is ready to return to action for the Seahawks.
Darnold missed last Sunday’s win over the Cardinals with the glute injury that knocked him out of the season opener, but he returned to full practice on Thursday and is off the injury report entirely on Friday. Head coach Mike Macdonald called Darnold “ready to go” in his Friday press conference, so Drew Lock will move back to the bench after helping the team to two victories.
The news is not as good on the defensive side of the ball. Safeties Julian Love (calf) and Ty Okada (hamstring) have been ruled out.
Love was added to the injury report when he missed practice on Thursday while Okada has yet to play this season. Defensive tackle Brandon Pili (concussion) is considered questionable for Sunday’s road game.
Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said on Wednesday that he didn’t have an update on quarterback Jayden Daniels’s outlook for the coming weeks because he was still meeting with specialists about his dislocated left elbow, but General Manager Adam Peters had more to offer on Friday morning.
Daniels will not play against the Seahawks this Sunday, but Peters indicated that the Commanders expect to have the quarterback in the lineup in the near future.
“He met with doctors all over the country,” Peters said, via 106.7 The Fan. “We got a lot of good opinions. As of right now, surgery is not on the table and we haven’t discussed IR.”
An injured reserve stint would keep Daniels out for at least four games, so taking that out of the conversation suggests Daniels will be ready to return to action relatively soon. For now, though, the Commanders will have to hope Marcus Mariota will be able to lead them to their first victory of the season.
Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner says Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels could play through the left elbow injury he suffered on Sunday.
Warner, who now appears on ESPN, described suffering the same injury in 2007 and not missing a game.
“I suffered the exact same injury back in ’07, and I played the next week,” Warner said. “I braced it up, obviously a couple shots along the way, I had to hand the football off with my right hand in both directions, but this to me is something, because it’s the left arm, if he wants to play through that, and get back out there and help his team, I believe he can. It’s not going to be one of those things that affects the throwing part of things. Does it affect his movement, does it affect his running or some of the things they want to do by design? Maybe, but I do believe this is something he can come back from. Because it’s the left arm, I don’t think it’s something we worry about long term and go, ‘Should we extend this guy, because he’s had this type of injury twice?’ I believe it’s something he can play through.”
Warner said that as a player, his mentality would be to do everything he can to help his team win.
“I can brace it up and go,” Warner said. “I don’t care about all that stuff. Let me go out there and play, I want to be out there with my guys as opposed to thinking about this a year or two down the road.”
Warner suffered his left elbow injury in Week 6 of 2007 when he was sacked by Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers. Warner missed the rest of that game, and when the injury was initially diagnosed he was expected to miss more time, but instead he played in Week 7, wearing a large brace on his left elbow, and started every game for the Cardinals the rest of the season. Warner played well down the stretch and was named the starter in 2008 after starting 2007 as the backup to Matt Leinart, and in 2008 Warner led the Cardinals to the Super Bowl.
What’s unknown is whether Warner is correct to call his injury “the exact same injury” that Daniels had. Daniels’ left elbow injury may be more severe, and it may not be feasible for him to play, even with a heavy brace on his left elbow. Warner displayed incredible toughness, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the right decision for Daniels.
Commanders franchise quarterback Jayden Daniels was injured on the final play of the first half. As team medical personnel worked on his dislocated left elbow, Daniels’ teammates were seen on the Fox broadcast walking by him toward the locker room.
Commanders players pushed back against the social media narrative that they abandoned their quarterback.
“It’s bullshit what people are saying,” Washington left tackle Brandon Coleman said, via John Keim of ESPN. “Jay’s our guy, and he’s been our guy. There’s no malice behind it.”
Many players stayed on the sideline watching Daniels being attended to, per Keim, and many returned to his side after trainers popped Daniels’ elbow back in place.
Coach Dan Quinn said what actually happened was the “opposite” of the narrative that grew from Fox’s short clip.
“When the half is over, the referees are saying, ‘Man, I can’t delay the half. They can’t stay on the field,’ The players were like, ‘No, we want to stay,’” Quinn said. “So it’s just the opposite of that. They were gutted. They love this guy. So halftime was hard and emotional in that space.”
Coleman and lineman Josh Conerly Jr. were the last players to leave for the locker room, along with Quinn and backup quarterbacks Marcus Mariota and Athan Kaliakmanis.
“All that stuff is ridiculous,” tight end Ben Sinnott said. “As far as the love and brotherhood we have for Jayden, it’s really strong. We’ve seen how hard he worked to get to where he’s been.
“It was a weird situation. People were trying to figure out what’s going on, and they wanted to give the trainers space to do it. You don’t want to crowd the guy. Obviously, guys are taking a step back and giving him space, praying, and we all came back.
“All that stuff is nonsense.”
The plan heading into the week was for Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold to practice on Wednesday and nothing changed over the last couple of days.
Head coach Mike Macdonald confirmed that Darnold will be on the field as he works his way back from the glute injury he suffered in the season opener. Macdonald said that Darnold will not handle a full workload, but the team hopes he’ll be able to do more as the week progresses.
“He’s not going to take every rep today and then we’ll kind of ramp it up as the week goes,” Macdonald said at a press conference.
Macdonald said that the decision about starting Darnold against the Commanders will come down to “does he feel good enough to play” and that the team would like to make a decision before heading into the weekend about whether it will be Darnold or Drew Lock piloting the offense.
While Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels is out for at least this week’s game against the Seahawks, there is not yet a clear timeline for his recovery.
Head coach Dan Quinn told reporters in his press conference that there isn’t an update yet on Daniels, as he is seeing another specialist for his dislocated left elbow on Wednesday.
Daniels re-injured his elbow on the last play of the second quarter in Sunday’s eventual loss to the Cowboys.
Marcus Mariota is set to start for Washington against Seattle this week. But beyond that, Quinn wants to have something more definitive before commenting on the club potentially making a move to bring in another QB.
“I’m not going to assume on the timeline,” Quinn said. “Once I know, I’ll share it with you to go. But I think just for me to say, this many weeks or not, I’d rather wait on that and let’s get all the info. But that said, I’d also say, yeah, we have a lot of confidence in what we do and what we’ve been doing. ... But as far as a timeline, or what, or who else to add, we’ll wait on that.”
Additionally, Quinn has ruled out safety Nick Cross for Week 3 after suffering an internal injury against the Cowboys.
Right guard Sam Cosmi is in the concussion protocol. Linebacker Frankie Luvu, tight end Chig Okonkwo, and defensive tackle are also rehabbing this week.
The Panthers will be without Jonathon Brooks for an extended period of time and they’re set to kick the tires on a veteran running back as they work to fill out their backfield in Brooks’s absence.
Austin Ekeler will try out for the club on Wednesday, per a report from Aaron Wilson that has been confirmed by multiple other outlets. Ekeler has not played since tearing his Achilles while with the Commanders last September.
Ekeler was in his second season with Washington after spending his first seven years in the league with the Chargers. He was a dual threat throughout his time with the Chargers, and peaked with 3,195 yards from scrimmage and 38 touchdowns across the 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Brooks is expected to miss more than a month after having core muscle surgery. Chuba Hubbard and AJ Dillon are the other backs on the 53-man roster for Carolina.
A whole lot of people heard Tom Brady say “oh shit” and “piss missile” on Sunday afternoon. (Hey, if smoking weed on the air is fair game, anything goes.)
Fox’s broadcast of Commanders-Cowboys in the late-afternoon window of the second Sunday of the 2026 season attracted 27.4 million viewers.
It was the most-watched NFL telecast of the season to date. And it had everything to do with the presence of the Cowboys.
Especially since the Commanders lost their starting quarterback, Jayden Daniels, at the end of the first half. And the game ultimately was a blowout, with Dallas winning the game, 37-20.
CBS will get the benefit of the Cowboys bump on Sunday. The Week 3 game against the Ravens from Brazil will be televised in the late-afternoon window on Sunday.
The Cowboys’ Week 4 game against the Texans inexplicably lands in the 1:00 p.m. ET window on Fox. The Week 5 Dallas game against the Buccaneers is set for Thursday night. In Week 6, the Cowboys face the Packers at Lambeau Field on Sunday night.
After that, the Cowboys visit the Eagles on Monday night to wrap up Week 7.
