Commanders Clips
Well, that was easy.
The 49ers took the opening kickoff and marched 64 yards in nine plays, scoring a touchdown on their opening drive for the third time this season. The 49ers faced two third downs, and Mike Evans caught a 24-yard pass on third-and-4 and Kaelon Black ran for 2 yards on third-and-1.
Brock Purdy threw an 11-yard touchdown to tight end George Kittle for an early 7-0 lead on the Commanders.
Purdy went 5-of-6 for 51 yards and a touchdown, hitting three different receivers.
Christian McCaffrey had two carries for 11 yards and three catches for 16 yards.
The 49ers will have star wide receiver Mike Evans for Monday Night Football.
Evans was questionable with ribs and Achilles issues, but he is active.
He has 24 catches for 326 yards and three touchdowns this season.
The 49ers will also have defensive lineman Mykel Williams (knee), cornerback Upton Stout (shoulder) and defensive back Siran Neal (neck). They, too, were questionable entering the game.
The 49ers’ inactives are defensive end Nick Bosa (knee, calf), offensive lineman Enrique Cruz, defensive lineman Naquan Jones, quarterback Kurtis Rourke, wide receiver Deebo Samuel (hamstring), safety Marques Sigle (ankle) and linebacker Garret Wallow (hamstring).
Washington will have wide receiver Stefon Diggs, who was questionable with a hamstring injury. He is active.
Diggs has 18 receptions for 170 yards and three touchdowns.
Cornerback Trey Amos (ankle) and safety Nick Cross (illness) are also active.
The Commanders’ inactives are quarterback Marcus Mariota, cornerback Fabian Moreau, cornerback Isaac Yiadom, outside linebacker T.J. Magunranyanga, offensive guard Tanoa Togiai and defensive end Charles Omenihu (groin, ankle).
The 49ers downgraded wide receiver Christian Kirk from questionable to out, confirming he will not play in Monday Night Football.
The team opened Kirk’s 21-day return-to-practice window last week.
He began the season on injured reserve with a calf injury.
The 49ers also announced the elevations of linebacker Jalen Graham and wide receiver Malik Turner for tonight’s game against the Commanders.
Graham has played 15 career games, but none this season. He has played 220 special teams snaps and 38 on defense in his career. He is expected to fill in for Garret Wallow (hamstring) on special teams.
Wide receiver Deebo Samuel (hamstring) is ruled out, so Turner was activated for depth purposes. Turner has played one game this season, seeing action on 17 special teams snaps against the Broncos.
Commanders running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt will miss at least the next four games with a groin injury.
Croskey-Merritt was ruled out of Monday night’s game against the 49ers on Saturday because of the injury and the Commanders placed him on injured reserve on Monday afternoon. The move leaves Austin Ekeler, Rachaad White, and Jeremy McNichols as the available backs for Washington.
McNichols is a new addition to the roster. He was activated from injured reserve on Monday along with cornerback Trey Amos and linebacker Jordan Magee. All three players were listed as questionable, but now carry no injury designation.
The Commanders opened up two other roster spots by placing linebacker Javontae Jean-Baptiste on injured reserve and waiving linebacker Austin Keys. Linebacker T.J. Maguranyanga was elevated from the practice squad to round out the pregame moves for the Commanders.
Thanks to another rough Sunday around the NFC East, the Commanders could make some history on Monday night.
Josh Dubow of the Associated Press points out that a Commanders loss to the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium would make the NFC East the first division since the AFL-NFL merger to win zero games over back-to-back weeks despite having all of its teams in action.
The Eagles and Cowboys are both 0-2 over the last two weeks while the Giants followed up their Week Five tie with the Commanders by losing to the Saints on Sunday. The 49ers are favored by more than a touchdown on Monday night, so oddsmakers believe that the NFC East will end the two-week stretch with an 0-6-2 record.
Week Seven will bring a bye for the Commanders and a trip to Houston for the Giants while the Eagles and Cowboys play each other, so chances are that the division should find its ninth win of the season.
Fullback Kyle Juszczyk is set to return to the 49ers’ lineup on Monday night.
Juszczyk missed last Sunday’s win over the Seahawks with a knee injury, but was up to full practice participation on Saturday. The team did not give him an injury designation for their home game against the Commanders.
Wide receiver Mike Evans (ribs, Achilles) is listed as questionable to play. Evans did not practice this week, but the 49ers are leaving the door open for him to play.
Defensive end Nick Bosa (knee, calf), wide receiver Deebo Samuel (hamstring), safety Marques Sigle (ankle), and linebacker Garret Wallow (hamstring) have been ruled out. Defensive tackle Gracen Halton (quad), wide receiver Christian Kirk (calf), safety Siran Neal (neck), cornerback Upton Stout (shoulder), and defensive end Mykel Williams (knee) are all listed as questionable.
The Commanders played without wide receiver Stefon Diggs last Sunday and they’ll wait to make a call on his availability for Monday’s game against the 49ers.
Diggs has been listed as questionable to play after practicing on a limited basis the last two days. Diggs, who had 18 catches in the first four games, has been battling a hamstring injury.
The Commanders listed eight other players as questionable as well. The group includes cornerback Trey Amos (ankle), linebacker Jordan Magee (hamstring), and running back Jeremy McNichols (quad). All three players would need to be activated in order to play in Week 6.
Safety Percy Butler (hamstring), safety Nick Cross (illness), defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw (ankle, knee), safety Tyler Owens (hamstring), and offensive lineman Lucas Patrick (illness) are the other questionable players on the active roster.
Head coach Dan Quinn announced earlier on Saturday that running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt (groin), linebacker Javontae Jean-Baptiste (pectoral), quarterback Marcus Mariota (knee), and defensive end Charles Omenihu (groin, ankle) will not play.
In the aftermath of the Commanders’ overtime clock debacle against the Giants, it became impossible to figure out exactly what had happened. Especially with everyone involved taking the blame for it.
A reader had an idea that was good enough to steal and use: Teams should record and preserve all communications, like the “black box” on an airplane.
We floated that concept, and at least someone was listening.
“Yeah, it’s chaos,” an unnamed head coach told Albert Breer of SI. “The coordinator’s gotta have discipline. I mean, it is fucking chaos. It’s like, ‘Everyone, shut the fuck up.’ Florio had a good one — they should black box the headsets. You could make a movie off of that shit.”
Maybe some teams already do it; if they do, they don’t advertise it. And those who may start doing it likely won’t make the communications available to the public.
Still, it’s critical for internal purposes. How can ownership (other than Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon, who puts herself in the fray for precisely such seasons) know what truly happened when left to the inherent flaws of human memory, especially when things are happening in a chaotic environment and when human nature will prompt some to slip into a CYA posture?
It can’t be difficult to save the conversations, and it wouldn’t be expensive. As we learned on Sunday, it’s necessary to knowing how a strange situation unfolded. That knowledge could go a long way toward figuring out who has the true responsibility for the ensuing snafu, and how to best prevent it from happening again.
The Commanders will be without their top running back for Monday night’s game against the 49ers.
Head coach Dan Quinn said on Saturday that Jacory Croskey-Merritt has been ruled out. Croskey-Merritt is dealing with a groin injury that kept him out of practice all this week.
Croskey-Merritt also missed time with a groin injury this summer and the current issue steps from an aggravation of that issue.
The Commanders are dealing with several other injuries in the backfield. Rachaad White has a shoulder injury and Austin Ekeler has a chest injury, but both players have been practicing. Washington could also activate Jeremy McNichols from injured reserve.
Linebacker Javontae Jean-Baptiste (pectoral), Charles Omenihu (groin, ankle), and Marcus Mariota (knee) will also miss the game. The Commanders will release their full injury report later on Saturday.
When a soldier is captured by the enemy, he knows to say only three things: Name, rank, and serial number. As to the Commanders’ overtime clock debacle against the Giants, a similar three-step formula has emerged.
It’s my responsibility. I take accountability. It won’t happen again.
Offensive coordinator David Blough completed the fault trifecta on Friday, in his first comments to reporters since the Week 5 game ended in a tie, thanks to a stunning failure to find a way to attempt a field goal in the final 55 seconds of the extra 10-minute period, Blough repeatedly expressed a very basic, general message of responsibility, acceptance of accountability, and determination to not let the situation repeat itself.
The reporters tried to get more (any) details from him about how it transpired. He continued to retreat to a combination of words and phrases that eventually seemed to be the product of talking points that had been prepared and memorized at some point this week.
Ultimately, there has been no real insight from coach Dan Quinn, quarterback Jayden Daniels, or Blough into how it happened. And none of them has been asked the one question that may have yielded the most revealing answer: Did the quarterback and the rest of the offense realize that the game would end when the 10 minutes expired?
At this point, with a new slate of Sunday games looming (and with the Commanders facing the 49ers on Monday night), the incident will become a footnote to the 2026 season. And we’ll never know precisely how it happened.
We know what happened — they screwed up, royally. But we’ll never know how it happened, why it happened, and, ultimately, who bears the bulk of the blame.
Yes, it’s everyone. Still, there’s someone who deserves more blame than others. And there’s a specific explanation (beyond “shit happens”) as to how it came to be. That explanation, through multiple press availabilities, never emerged.
