The Commanders make a drastic roster change by releasing offseason mistake to kick off their bye week
The Commanders finally addressed the elephant in the room after a disappointing showing.
The Washington Commanders left Madrid, Spain, with their sixth straight loss and a lot of disappointment after costly mistakes allowed the Miami Dolphins to win in overtime.
Head coach Dan Quinn needed to make even more drastic changes after taking over the defense, which seemed to work well this week. Special teams were a critical factor in the game after Mike Sainristil muffed a punt late, and Matt Gay missed two field goals, including what would’ve been the game-winner.
The Commanders wasted no time making a change that should’ve happened a long time ago, and have officially released Gay after his critical misses on Sunday.
The Commanders release kicker Matt Gay
The struggles for Gay started back at training camp and preseason, yet the team refused to bring in any competition. General manager Adam Peters gave Gay the highest fully guaranteed one-year contract in NFL history and wanted to ride it out, but it turned into a bad decision. Enough was enough, though, and the bye week came at a perfect time for the Commanders to release Gay.
The team now has plenty of time to figure out the kicking situation and hold tryouts during the bye week. Gay finishes his time in Washington, making 68.4% of his kicks and was only four of nine from attempts of 50+ yards. In today’s league, you have to make those 50+ yard kicks routinely, and it was Gay’s weakest point. Quinn talked to the media on Monday about the quick decision and what went into the final call as they returned home.
“Adam and I visited with Matt [Gay] today,” Quinn said. “Matt has been a fantastic teammate here, and like an all-time good dude. So, yeah, really bummed it didn’t work out. But yeah, we just felt, hey, this is the change that we needed. This is what we think at this time is the best decision for the team. When they’re hard, like this one, because of who the person is, it makes it especially difficult, but you still have to make the decisions you think are best for the whole team.
“We’re just not making those kicks,” Quinn added. “Not just the ones yesterday. We just want to look at the big picture of things and make sure we can just make the best decisions for the team. It was a hard one, for sure, but you know, like at that position, the performance, you know, got to have it, and you know, so really bummed. We wanted this to work out long term with Matt, but that was a decision that we felt was best, but it wasn’t from one game for sure.”
The Commanders need to find a kicker
Now the work really starts, as the team will look for its next kicker. This will now be the ninth kicker for the Commanders since Peters and Quinn took over. They have a tough decision to make with bringing in veteran Justin Tucker, who was already struggling before his legal troubles, or looking elsewhere. Ben Sauls is a great option on the New York Giants’ practice squad if they want to sign him to the active roster.
They don’t have enough draft picks to select a kicker after the season, and you should never draft one anyway, so they’ll have to find a free agent that fits the best. This has been one of the biggest struggles over the last two seasons, but moving on from Gay was something that needed to happen during the bye week.
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