The Commanders walked off Monday night at 1-4-1, but Stefon Diggs wasn’t interested in dwelling on the loss. In the locker room, he pointed to what the team showed against San Francisco and to the bigger picture in the NFC East as reasons the season still has room to turn.
Diggs helped make that case on the field. His third-quarter touchdown catch sparked a 14-point surge that cut into a 20-point 49ers lead and kept Washington in striking distance late into the fourth quarter. The Commanders eventually came up empty on a long drive that stalled on fourth down in the red zone, and San Francisco finished off the 23-17 win to move to 6-0.
Still, Diggs saw enough to believe the season is not out of reach.
“It’s still wide open,” Diggs said, via Marshall Kramsky of WUSA. “Where we are and where the league is, it’s kinda interesting.
A weird spot right now. Nobody’s kinda made it clear - that team we just played is a helluva football team.
That’s one of those guys that’s gonna be in the running. . . . We played a decent game, we could’ve played a lot better.
We were still in it, just like all these games we’ve been in the past couple weeks. We’ve been in it, we just gotta find a way to pull ‘em out.”
There’s at least some logic to that optimism. In the NFC East, no team has won since Week 4, and two of the division’s other three clubs have already lost their starting quarterbacks for the season. That leaves the race looking far from settled.
At the same time, Washington hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt. The Commanders have been right there in a string of games, only to fall short when things tighten up late. That pattern makes a sudden surge hard to picture.
Even so, the path is still there. Diggs and the Commanders have the bye week ahead, and after one win in six weeks, that open door is about as much as they can ask for right now.
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 Just Reframed The Commanders' Ugly Start
The Commanders early-season mess looks a little different when viewed through the lens of the NFC East, where no one has separated from the pack. Washingtons 1-4-1 record after Week 6 has left plenty of frustration behind, especially with the team continuing to struggle finishing games, but Stefon Diggs put a more optimistic spin on the larger picture by framing the division as still very much up for grabs.
For Washington, though, the point is not just what the standings look like in October. Jayden Daniels has already stressed the need for the Commanders to put together a full game, and that remains the real issue after another uneven stretch. In a division where nobody has taken control, the margin for error is still there, but only if Washington starts matching its talent with steadier play over all four quarters. [Read more 🡒]