Just when it seemed the Washington Commanders’ night couldn’t get much worse, it actually got much, much worse.
With his team trailing the Seattle Seahawks by 31 points midway through the fourth quarter Sunday night, Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels suffered a gruesome injury to his non-throwing arm that will likely keep him off the field for several weeks.
After Washington’s 38-14 loss, coach Dan Quinn had little information on his second-year quarterback, saying only that Daniels had a “left arm injury” and that he hoped to provide an update in the morning.
Multiple media outlets are reporting that Daniels dislocated his elbow and will undergo an MRI on Monday to determine the severity of the injury.
A former star at Cajon High, Daniels won the Heisman Trophy at Louisiana State in 2023 and was selected at No. 2 overall by the Commanders in the 2024 NFL draft. He immediately took the league by storm, earning Pro Bowl and offensive rookie of the year honors while leading Washington to an unlikely appearance in the NFC championship game.
Season 2 has been a disappointment. Going into this weekend, Daniels had already missed three games with knee and hamstring injuries and the Commanders had struggled to a 3-5 record.
Then came Sunday night. Down by four scores in the fourth quarter, Washington drove to the Seattle 2-yard-line and was looking to make a slight dent in the deficit when disaster struck. On second-and-goal with 7:39 remaining in the game, Daniels faked a handoff and scrambled to his right before being spun down by Seattle’s Drake Thomas for a 2-yard loss.
As he was being taken to the ground, Daniels put out his left arm to brace himself. His elbow bent the wrong way. Commanders guard Sam Cosmi called the scene “gut-wrenching.”
“I didn’t see what happened exactly. I just heard a pause and I kind of put my head down and prayed for him,” Cosmi said. “You just don’t want to see that happen.”
A similar scene took place nearly 13 years ago for Washington, when another rising young star at quarterback, Robert Griffin III, re-injured his knee during a home game against the Seahawks. His career was never the same afterward.
Griffin was one of several people who took to social media Sunday night to comment on the matter. He seemed to speak for the majority of them when he wrote on X, “WHY WAS JAYDEN DANIELS EVEN STILL IN THE GAME?!?!?!”
“The Seattle Seahawks had the game won,” a visbly distraught Griffin said in a video also posted to X. “I understand you want to play to the end, but with the injuries that he’s already had this year, and the injuries he had last year, why is he in the game? Doesn’t make sense.”
Griffin, who currently works as a college football analyst on Fox Sports, added: “You can’t say a knee and a hamstring leads to an elbow injury like that. It was a freak accident, freak play. But I can’t help but feel for Jayden Daniels. Man, I can’t help but feel for Washington Commanders fans. Just a demoralizing blow, man.”
Asked by reporters after the game whether any consideration was given to removing Daniels before that series, Quinn seemed to indicate that the plays being called didn’t seem to present a high injury risk.
“Obviously in hindsight, you don’t want to think that way, where injury could take place,” Quinn said. “Obviously, we’re more concerned in that spot to run and hand off and not have reads to go, but just the end result, obviously I’m bummed.”
Later in the news conference, in response to a similar question, Quinn gave a similar answer.
“Yeah, obviously, I’m just gutted by this, bummed,” Quinn said. “The one that he was on injured is usually a runner or throwing the flats, not a scramble. So it wasn’t a designed read or play into that spot. If we run it 50 times, it’s either hand off or throw, say, 50 times. So it’s a bummer, man, in a big way.”
Backup quarterback Marcus Mariota has led the Commanders to a 1-2 record starting in place of Daniels this season.
