The Washington Commanders undefeated on Sunday, but it certainly felt like it after their baffling game-management error in overtime.
The Commanders literally ran out of time in a 27-27 tie with the New York Giants at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md. after the team seemed to forget they were out of timeouts as the clock ticked into overtime. In Washington is solid in field goal range, quarterback Jayden Daniels ran what appeared to be a designed quarterback run with 12 seconds left while inside New York territory.
After Daniels was tackled in bounds, there was no need for the Commanders to get back to the line of scrimmage and spike the ball. By the time they realized what was happening, it was too late for them to line up in time, and the clock had run out on them.
Commanders can’t play off on time and this game ends in a tie https://t.co/WmPp6q5hU0
— NFL (@NFL) October 11, 2026
Commanders coach Dan Quinn was angered by the series of events and smashed his headset on the ground after timeout.
Dan Quinn just broke his headset. https://t.co/Q15CXgSEJK
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 11, 2026
The only remotely plausible explanation is that Daniels thought the Commanders still had a timeout. That’s partly on Daniels, but pretty much everyone from the coaching staff down has to be held accountable for that. Daniels needs to know the timeout situation, and if he doesn’t, someone needs to tell him.
The latter sequence is at least comparable to the disastrous series of events that befell the Chicago Bears Coach Matt Eberflus was fired two years ago. Quinn probably won’t suffer the same fate here, but she and Daniels will have a lot of questions to answer as to how it happened.