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Jayden Daniels taking it one game at a time after Commanders’ win (0:51)
Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels reacts to his team’s playoff victory over the Buccaneers. (0:51)
TAMPA, Fla. — The ball bounced off the right upright and, for a second, it appeared the Washington Commanders would once more encounter something they had long been familiar with over the years: heartbreak. But, in the 2024 season, the Commanders have exorcised one ghost after another.
And, so, the ball did the only thing it should do this season: it ricocheted over the crossbar to give the Commanders a 23-20 last-second win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a wild-card-round game Sunday night.
Thus continues a magical season for the Commanders (13-5), who face the NFC’s top seed, the Detroit Lions, at 8 p.m. Saturday night. Zane Gonzalez‘s 37-yard field goal gave Washington its first playoff win since Jan. 7, 2006, which followed the 2005 regular season.
The kick provided a jolt of unnecessary anxiety.
“I felt like I was in a Bounty commercial where the cup spills and like, ‘nooooo,'” Washington coach Dan Quinn said. “As it went through, I just paused and probably skipped a beat, but that’s the emotion where it was at.”
But that has been the new normal for Washington. The Commanders have won six consecutive games — the past five occurring on the final play of the game or the last play from scrimmage. Those six wins are two more than Washington had in 2023 and its 13 wins are more than it had in the previous two seasons combined.
The Commanders had not won 11 games in a regular season since 1991. Sunday night provided only their fourth playoff win since winning the Super Bowl after the 1991 season. And it’s only their third playoff victory in the past 26 years.
“This is a really connected team,” Quinn said. “They believe in one another and you have to have that connection to also have that belief.
“We don’t really waver when those moments come,” Washington guard Sam Cosmi said. “Some teams might crumble, but we don’t.”
As always, a key driver was rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, who completed 24 of 35 passes for 268 yards and 2 touchdowns in his first playoff start — coming at the same stadium where Washington opened the season with a 37-20 loss.
Daniels coolly drove Washington down the field in the final 4 minutes, 41 seconds after Tampa had tied the score at 20-20 with a 32-yard field goal. Daniels completed all three of his passes for 44 yards and, on third-and-2, he sprinted around the right end on a keeper for 4 yards with 55 seconds left, ensuring the Commanders would run out the clock.
No one was surprised by Daniels’ performance in the final minutes.
“He’s done it all year,” Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner said.
Not that Daniels recalls much about the final moments. He was asked what he said to backup quarterback Marcus Mariota during a break at the two-minute warning and couldn’t remember. Daniels couldn’t recall his emotion when he saw the kick bounce through the uprights.
“I don’t know, I don’t think I even smiled,” he said. “You just kind of find that zone.”
Washington’s players and coaches have mentioned Daniels’ ability to stay the same no matter the situation. Daniels has led five game-winning drives, two that ended in last-second field goals and three others in which he threw a touchdown pass on the final play from scrimmage.
“If he had his heart rate monitor on, and mine, they would not be the same in the game,” Quinn said. “His stays pretty consistently good and sometimes I’m like the duck: If you just saw the feet going under the water, it’s good. But he really is, in that space, exceptional.”
Outside the locker room, Washington’s new ownership group and their families celebrated. Managing partner Josh Harris hugged his kids and other family members and acquaintances. He embraced Magic Johnson, one of the team’s numerous minority shareholders. Before receiver Terry McLaurin headed to the interview room, he stopped to hug Johnson as well.
“That’s what we were talking about!” Johnson said as he wrapped his arms around McLaurin.
Harris bought the team in July 2023 but the organization has undergone a radical transformation — notably in the past year with the hiring of general manager Adam Peters, Quinn and the drafting of Daniels.
The demons of the past — the investigations of prior owner Dan Snyder and his controversial tenure that produced two playoff wins in 24 years — have been buried deeper and deeper in the fan base’s mind.
“This team, this organization, all of us have gone through it,” McLaurin said. “So, to be on the other side and have some fruits of our labor is unbelievable.”
All it took was a proper bounce off the uprights to bring this emotion. But while the Bucs fans in the stadium had a momentary glimpse of hope, the Commanders knew the ball could fall only one way.
“To be honest,” Commanders defensive tackle Jon Allen said, “I wasn’t surprised. At this point, the way everything’s been going, we train for these moments. We’ve been in these moments all season.”
