Imagine putting the game — and, really, perhaps the whole season — on the legs of 32-year-old Marcus Mariota.
Look at a picture of Mariota as he is right now, with salt-and-pepper hair slowly turning all gray. It had been so long since Mariota had played a full NFL game that he went to the locker room in the middle of it to take an IV bag just to make it the full 60 minutes.
“My workload hasn’t been this much in a while,” he said. “So, yeah, my body wasn’t really ready for it.”
And yet, when it mattered, Mariota swept out to his right to make a game-sealing third-and-7 conversion. Just to make sure he got there, he capped the run with a leaping dive.
The gamble of calling a Mariota read option — and Mariota’s all-or-nothing diving finish — felt like it had the stamp of his head coach, who nearly everyone has counted out for weeks even though this season itself is barely three weeks old.
No one needed a Commanders win on Sunday more than Dan Quinn. And the victory had his fingerprints all over it.
A turnover-seeking defense. An undermanned offense getting by on gutsy plays. Even if you feel the 33-31 victory over Seattle was a little fluky (and, heck, it kinda was), you have to give Quinn credit for steering his team back toward the win column in a topsy-turvy affair.
It was also redeeming for his first-year coordinators, David Blough (offense) and Daronte Jones (defense), but it’s Quinn sitting on one of the NFL’s hottest coaching seats. In spite of injuries dotted all over the depth chart, he found a way to make it work in the Commanders’ home debut.
If he had started winless through three games, he would be approaching a point of no return toward a firing some were forecasting even before the season began.
“The 0-3 test and the 1-2 test — both don’t sound great on paper, but they feel a lot different,” Quinn acknowledged. “We didn’t need belief, but we needed to execute it and give ourselves a real good shot at it.”
It’s hard to see another scenario of how Washington could have beaten the 7.5-point favorites other than what happened.
Quinn noted he has a wall outside his office dedicated to highlighting the Commanders’ turnovers. Coming into Week 3, the wall was bare. Washington’s defense had been plundered without so much as a pick or a fumble.
That drought made defensive lineman Tim Settle Jr. furious. The Commanders spent the week practicing their punch-outs and reads, and they felt strongly they would finally give Quinn something to post on the turnover wall.
Settle was a huge part of the breakthrough, recovering Seattle’s first giveaway after Amik Robertson forced a fumble. Settle also put his hand on a Sam Darnold pass after noticing how low the quarterback’s throwing trajectory was across the middle — his tip became a Sonny Styles interception in the third quarter.
All three turnovers wound up becoming touchdowns, a mighty shift in the tide that Settle said he always saw coming.
“We got the ball out so much during practice this week, it was only bound to happen,” Settle said. “When the coach preaches, and we receive the message and we’re able to execute, you get the results that you want.”
The win also showcased how the team’s depth, profoundly shaken by injuries, has maintained resilience — a sign of good coaching. Mariota, stepping in for the injured Jayden Daniels, was not reeling off highlight throws but was steady in a 19-for-31 performance for 183 yards and three touchdown passes. He leaned hard on Terry McLaurin, who caught six balls for 77 yards, including a 30-yard score.
“He’s the man,” Mariota said with a relieved laugh.
But he was hardly the only backup to make a splash. When Leo Chenal suffered a scary neck injury that required him to be carted off the field and sent to a hospital, Kain Medrano stepped in. Medrano jumped a check-down route for a pick in the fourth quarter and didn’t stop running until he had returned the ball 50 yards to the end zone.
Even a win over the Seahawks isn’t going to quell too much anxiety in Washington. Daniels’ second elbow injury in as many seasons raises significant questions for the future of the franchise, and a game next week in London against the Indianapolis Colts is no picnic.
When you break down the stats, Seattle was much more productive (437 offensive yards to 258) than its host. Quinn didn’t bother to beat his chest after the first win of the season, knowing the next could be harder to come by. “We’ve got a lot to fix,” he said soberly.
But, for a coach who fell to earth with a 5-12 record last season, every single victory is valuable — especially the ones that give the flavor of his 12-5 start in D.C. in 2024. After bringing the Commanders to the cusp of the Super Bowl, Quinn has fallen steeply from grace, to the point that it’s easy to forget how much he had to do with that 2024 team’s success with his gutsy fourth-down calls and defense that played well above its talent.
With Daniels sidelined, with his roster beat up, all Quinn has left is a team that can either seal his fate and eventual firing or embody his qualities and survive.
On Sunday, the Commanders survived. If they can keep doing it, so might Quinn.
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