Practice notes | Commanders move on from Hail Mary, shift focus to Giants

“Fortunately, there’s some really cool leaders on this team that are able to step in and be able to be in the spaces that I’m not,” Quinn said. “That’s the guys like [Bobby] Wagner and [Zach] Ertz and [Frankie] Luvu and many others that are ready to step into that space and knowing, ‘Hey, this is where we’re gonna lock in to do our stuff.'”

It helps that Washington didn’t play a perfect game against the Bears, nor should it have needed the Hail Mary to win. The offense was held out of the end zone on all three of its red zone trips, thanks to drops and uncharacteristic discipline penalties. The defense played well for almost three full quarters but gave up a 56-yard rushing touchdown — an area of the unit that is taking more time to improve — and couldn’t quite finish in taking down Caleb Williams as many times as it could have.

That’s eerily similar to how things unfolded in the first matchup with the Giants. Granted, Washington still won, and just as they did against the Bears, the players showed they can find victory in sloppy games. They will say, though, that neither seven field goals nor a prayer at the end of regulation are sustainable ways to win.

They’ll need to get back to putting together team efforts to win games. Their past performances indicate they’re capable of achieving that.

“Go out there and enjoy every moment of it with each other,” Daniels said. “But at the end of the day, what happened last week doesn’t really matter.”