Dan Quinn admits Commanders face difficult challenge moving past Giants tie before Monday Night Football vs. 49ers
After Washington’s painful tie with New York, Dan Quinn acknowledged the difficulty of moving forward and emphasized resilience, but the Commanders still have to prove they’ve turned the page.
Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn met with the media this week after the team received an extra day off, a perk of its upcoming Monday Night Football matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. Quinn laid out the foundation for the challenging week ahead.
“We’ve only played 30% of the season,” Quinn said. An attempt to put in perspective how much season is left before fielding questions about the tough matchup ahead.
He’s right about that. The bigger question is whether the extra day can help Washington shake off a potential hangover. The Commanders walked out of Sunday’s game against the New York Giants with a tie that felt every bit like a loss. Nobody in the building came away happy with that result, and the 49ers won’t care how the Commanders feel about it.
Dan Quinn addresses the hangover question
Quinn was asked directly about the end of the Giants game and how a coach knows when his team has moved on. He gave a long answer:
“Some [hangovers] are longer than others, but that’s like part of the job. To make sure these are the specific moments that we want to learn from and apply and move forward. And what I do know about our team, through the first part of the season, we’ve had a lot of adversity where you’ve got to respond,” Quinn said.
Quinn then delivered an all time Quinn-ism straight from the coach speak playbook.
“Although the adversity has been difficult, this team’s connected. They are tough, and you get a chance to show that resilience and not just talk about it. I think that’s a big step when the adversity comes, not just talking about it but showing it. And it’s a team that definitely wants to do that.”
It’s a very difficult task to say anything in this moment that would cut through the dark clouds hanging over this team. Quinn took the safe path of attempting to re-assert belief in his guys.
Washington has to show it against San Francisco
Quinn himself drew the line between talking about resilience and showing it. Monday night is where Washington has to show it, against a 49ers team that isn’t going to give the Commanders a soft landing after a gut punch.
Avoiding a hangover gets harder when the entire sports media world spends two straight days talking about your hangover. Every show, every segment, every recap circled back to how Washington let the Giants game slip into a tie. Players hear that. You can tell a locker room to tune out the noise, but the noise has a way of getting in anyway.
The extra day helps. Fresh legs matter, and Quinn made that point clearly. Fresh minds are a different story, and no amount of rest guarantees the Commanders show up Monday with their heads right.
