OPINION:
The taste of the historically bizarre ending of the New York Giants game still sits in the mouths of Washington Commanders fans — “Cheap and metallic, like sucking on a greasy coin,” as Hannibal Lecter said to Clarice Starling in “The Silence of the Lambs.”
Fans are choking on it. The depths of incompetence that fans believe coach Dan Quinn is capable of plumbing are alarming.
In Monday night’s 23-17 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, California, Commanders fans in the world of social media were convinced that Quinn — who has coached in the NFL for more than 20 years — did not know that it was fourth down on a fourth-and-two play in the red zone in the first half, when quarterback Jayden Daniels threw the ball away, seemingly to avoid a sack.
People were interested in these podcasts
Another greasy coin.
Why did Commanders fans believe Quinn was clueless? Because they read his lips on the video of the play that went viral on the internet.
That’s what it has come to — lip-reading the coach to determine if he knew something so simple and basic that the rest of the country knew — what down it was.
After perhaps the worst blunder in memory on a football field a week earlier — the sideline and the players on the field were seemingly unaware time was about to expire before the Commanders could kick a game-winning field goal — many viewers wondered if Quinn, after Daniels’ incomplete pass on fourth down, said: ““Field goal. Oh, that was 4th down?”
Quinn denied that in a lengthy explanation in his post-game press conference.
“I definitely knew it was fourth down,” Quinn told reporters. “We were going for it, and I was — I think what you’re referring to, I was probably saying, like, with the illegal shift, there’s not a penalty to go for a field goal. Like, it doesn’t go, like, it’s the turn on downs. Like, I think somebody asked me, ‘Can we kick a field goal?’ So, now we were going for it. We knew we had to go for some fourth downs to be bold in the game. I didn’t think it was gonna be a 17-14 game. I probably thought it was going to need 28, 30 to score, you know, to go win it. And so it was by design that we were going to go, but I knew what happened. I think, I probably was just commenting that I remember, at least on the headset, somebody asked me, after an illegal shift, like it was turnover on downs, and [quarterback] Jayden [Daniels] saw the foul, too. He also came out and saw the penalty.”
We still don’t really know what he said. I am going to take him at his word.
It may not matter what Quinn actually said. It’s what many Commanders fans believe that is damaging. If you’re owner Josh Harris, your customers think your coach is capable of not knowing something as simple as what down it is for his team on the field.
Quinn and his team may want to turn the page from the end of the Giants game, but it appears to have defined him now, to the point that every failed coaching decision is magnified.
Even if the Commanders (1-4-1) completed their remarkable comeback from being down 20-3 going into the second half to beat the undefeated 49ers on the road, it may have been overshadowed by the speculation attached to Quinn’s viral video.
Daniels’ reputation is certainly bruised following his contribution to the Giants game meltdown, and he didn’t help himself Monday night by throwing the ball away on the fourth-down play instead of at least trying to connect with a receiver, even if he was sacked in the effort. The Commanders were hit with an illegal shift penalty, which would have negated the play. But Daniels didn’t know that when he threw the ball away.
“I’ve just got to execute better in that situation regardless of a flag or not,” Daniels said. “Fourth down … don’t die with the ball, so I have to be better in that spot.”
It was Daniels who led the second half comeback, completing 22 of 27 passes for 212 yards and two touchdowns against a San Francisco defense that had shut them down in the first half. But the comeback collapsed at the end with an intentional grounding call on Daniels and a sack with a three-man San Francisco pass rush. Daniels finished the game completing 29 of 40 passes for 300 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. He has yet to throw an interception this season in four starts.
But the mistakes — the continuous pre-snap penalties, miscues and blunders — are defining this team, its coach and their quarterback, like a pocketful of greasy coins.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
Follow the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.