The Commanders went 12-5 in 2024 and reached the NFC championship game. The symmetry is as perfect as it is worthless. Records don’t invert because a truth reveals itself, so the main question swirling through Ashburn as the 2026 Commanders open training camp: Which previous iteration of head coach Dan Quinn’s team is closer to what they are now?
The team that went 5-12 last season was never the team that went 12-5, and the reason is not complicated: The quarterback barely played. Jayden Daniels started just seven games last season and finished only four of them. A Week 2 left knee sprain in Green Bay cost him two games.
He strained his right hamstring in Dallas Week 7 and missed another. A gruesome dislocated left elbow on a scramble against Seattle in Week 9 sidelined him until Week 14, only to come back in Minnesota and land on that same elbow after an interception, never to suit up again in 2025. That led to a total of eight starts for Marcus Mariota and two from journeyman Josh Johnson.
A receiving corps decimated by injuries saw even reliable Pro Bowler Terry McLaurin limited to 10 games and career lows in catches (38), yards (582) and touchdowns (3) after he broke out for a career-best 13 TDs in 2024, his fifth straight 1,000-yard campaign. We have made the following roster moves: – Placed CB Trey Amos, DE Dorance Armstrong and DE Deatrich Wise Jr. on the Active/Physically Unable to Perform list – Placed CB Fred Davis II on the Active/Non-Football Illness list pic.twitter.com/lqKJqw72qD — Washington Commanders (@Commanders) July 25, 2026 So Washington’s offense didn’t just have a bad season.
The scoring offense fell from fifth in the NFL to 22nd, averaging 20.9 points a game. It was a fall befitting a unit playing large stretches without the two players it was built around. The rest of the collapse was arithmetic that doesn’t repeat.
The Commanders finished minus-13 in turnover margin after finishing plus-1, and they got there by taking the ball away just 10 times all season. That’s nowhere near the Quinn defense we were sold. It’s a coin that landed the wrong way over most of 17 weeks, and will assuredly not land that way again.
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