Dan Quinn isn’t getting pushed out right now, and that matters for the Washington Commanders as much as anything that happened on the field.
The bye week gives the head coach a little more room to work, and it appears the organization is willing to let him try to steady things before making any harsher calls. That was always the most likely path, especially after the Commanders showed some fight following their rough first half against the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football.
That response mattered. It would have been easy for the group to unravel, but instead the players kept battling, and that has helped Quinn keep the support inside the building. The outside noise is loud, but the locker room is still standing behind him.
There’s still plenty for the Commanders to sort through during the break. Quinn has said changes are coming, but the shape of those changes is still unclear.
Benching players is one possible route. Another is adjusting the schemes.
For now, though, Quinn has put real trust in his two rookie coordinators to keep running their units their own way.
That means the focus is not on them. It’s on whether the team can keep showing the kind of commitment that has bought Quinn some breathing room.
NFL Network and ESPN insider Ian Rapoport said as much, noting that there’s no real urgency to make a midseason move. He pointed to the effort in San Francisco and the fact that the team hasn’t splintered.
“The team continues fighting. Clear that they did not lose the locker room.
Josh Harris does not like firing a coach midseason. It seems like based on this effort shown on the field, Dan Quinn is going to stick around for the foreseeable future.
The long-term future, still a question.”
Rapoport added that Quinn’s ability to stay in place was helped by what the Commanders showed in that game, even if the broader picture is still unresolved.
Calmer voices have apparently won out for the moment, despite a growing section of the fan base calling for action. That locker room culture is giving Quinn more cover than some supporters think he deserves, but it also reflects something important for any team trying to get back on track.
Removing him now could create more problems than it solves. If the players had quit or started openly challenging how things were being run, the conversation would be different. That hasn’t happened, and that may be Quinn’s biggest lifeline.
Still, the clock is ticking in a bigger sense. The Commanders have won just three of their last 17 games, and that kind of stretch leaves little room for comfort. Josh Harris and the people around him will be watching closely, because liking a coach is not the same thing as being able to keep him indefinitely.
For Quinn, the next 11 games are the ones that matter most. If the bye week leads to real improvement, the Commanders can create some stability and buy him a better shot at avoiding the axe once the season ends.
Nobody who wants him gone is getting that change right away. The team has already made that clear without saying a word.
What happens next is the part that will define his future.
In Other News...
Commanders Head Into Bye Week With NFC East Embarrassment Growing
The bye week arrives with plenty for Washington to sort through after the loss to San Francisco pushed the Commanders to 1-4-1 and left them stuck in the middle of an ugly stretch for the NFC East. Across Weeks 5 and 6, the division went winless, a rare run of futility that has only added to the sense that nobody in the East is finding much traction right now.
Washingtons own issues go beyond the standings, with injuries continuing to chip away at the roster and the offense trying to piece itself together. Terry McLaurin was among the players hurt, and the break now gives the Commanders at least a little time to reset before the next phase of a season that is already getting complicated. [Read more 🡒]
49ers Win Now Comes With A Discipline Debate Fans Will Hate
The afterglow from Monday nights 23-17 loss to San Francisco has been hard to separate from what happened in the trenches, where Washington had to keep playing after Sam Cosmi went out following a low collision on the line. The Commanders left the field at 1-4-1, but the conversation around the game quickly shifted from the final score to the kind of contact that tends to linger long after the broadcast ends.
Public criticism followed the play almost immediately, with Shannon Sharpe calling it dirty and drawing more attention to the hit than the 49ers move to 6-0. For Washington, the bigger concern is what comes next for Cosmi and how the league handles a snap that already has people debating discipline instead of football. [Read more 🡒]
Stefon Diggs Keeps One Commanders Debate Alive After Another Loss
Another loss pushed Washington to 1-4-1 on Monday night, but the bigger concern in the moment was how the Commanders keep finding themselves in catch-up mode. The latest setback fit a familiar pattern for a team trying to stabilize its season, with enough flashes to keep the conversation alive and enough mistakes to leave plenty of frustration behind.
Stefon Diggs still saw a division that leaves room for hope, even with Washington fighting uphill again. He pointed to the NFC East as still being very much in play, which matters because the Commanders have not completely fallen out of the race even as the margin for error keeps shrinking. The challenge now is turning that belief into a more complete performance before the schedule makes the debate any harder to sustain. [Read more 🡒]