Dan Quinn explains why he's not worried about Commanders' disadvantage against Eagles and he's right
Thursday night games aren't easy and it's extremely easy to see why: Teams have to turn around and play another football game just three days after a Sunday matchup.It really takes a toll on guys, both mentally and physically. Not only do they have to recover and get their bodies ready for another 60-minutes of […]
Thursday night games aren't easy and it's extremely easy to see why: Teams have to turn around and play another football game just three days after a Sunday matchup.
It really takes a toll on guys, both mentally and physically. Not only do they have to recover and get their bodies ready for another 60-minutes of play, but they have to study up and prepare for their next opponent.
It's a disadvantage, no matter who's playing. The only benefit that stems from the overall situation is one team gets to play at home. That's it.
Things can become even harder if a team is coming off a loss. Not only do players and coaches have to get over the previous game quicker than usual – coaches have to go back and make sure they know they're correcting the mistakes that were made during the last matchup and that they don't happen again, moving forward.
Now that can really make things complicated and it's the exact situation the Washington Commanders are facing as they head into Week 11's matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Fortunately the Commanders have an experienced, level-headed head coach in Dan Quinn who knows the task isn't as arduous as it appears.
"[The] good news [is] we've got a lot of banked hours together, and so, so many of these things are ones that can be corrected," Quinn told reporters Monday. "If there was a long laundry list of what was going on that felt bad, I'd say I would be anxious or worried. But this is a group that responds. And in a game [where] we have to make the corrections and move forward, that's okay.
"That's part of what we do and so good news – a good bit of these players will know the correction before we even come to them. So that, to me, is the best of the best, where this is not kindergarten."
Quinn's right and he's mentioned the "banked hours" before. This is a tightly-knit team that operates as a single unit. That's largely due to the culture Quinn and general manager Adam Peters have quickly built over the last 9-1/2ish months. The coaches and players won't have much trouble relaying the necessary messages back and forth in order to fix the issues that led to Week 10's tough loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
There's also the fact the Commanders are pissed heading into this game. As mentioned earlier, last week's loss was a tough one and Washington is taking it a bit more personally because the team knows it left plenty of opportunities to help win the game on the field.
In other words: The Commanders want to wipe the bad taste from their mouths and they want to do it, quick.
"I thought that was a good sign to know that, yeah, they're mad and… this game… can't get here quick enough," said Quinn. "So every once in a while, that short week's not such a bad thing. We'll be on a plane by Wednesday and get to go battle again in a really tough, good environment, against an excellent team…
“… This team is itching to play. I can promise you that. You have that taste where you're just mad."
There's an added bonus to all of this, as well, and it's the travel aspect for Washington. Philadelphia is only about 3-1/2 hours from Ashburn, so it's not like the Commanders are traveling cross-country, or anything like that.
Either way, Quinn knows his guys are good to go, regardless of circumstance. Now, obviously, it's all about making it come together and ridding that bad taste on Thursday night.
