For the first half of the Washington Commanders' Week 6 Monday Night Football tilt against the San Francisco 49ers, everything went wrong. Head coach Dan Quinn's team couldn't stop a nosebleed defensively, seemed to forget how many downs they had on offense, and trailed by 17 points at the break.
In the second half, the Commanders did something arguably even worse. They gave themselves false hope.
Washington came back, only to trip over its own feet one too many times. It's the story of the franchise's 2026 season.
Commanders left lamenting the little things that went wrong once again
We'll start with left guard Chris Paul committing a brutal facemask penalty that wiped out what would've been a go-ahead score from running back Jeremy McNichols. Washington having a touchdown taken off the board is a weekly occurrence at this point, except this one was actually a clear and obvious infraction.
Washington also burned a timeout with about three minutes left, when the clock had stopped, to avoid a delay-of-game penalty. After coming up empty but then holding the Niners to a three-and-out, those extra 40 seconds could have come in handy.
Then, on the Commanders' last-gasp drive with time expiring, quarterback Jayden Daniels led the offense into scoring range just to commit an intentional grounding foul that led to a 10-second runoff and forced a Hail Mary attempt that never even had a chance.
Combined with the inexcusable down misjudgment in the first half, it wasn't the greatest look. Especially since Quinn's squad just threw away a win against the New York Giants by letting the clock run out in overtime while in walk-off field goal range.
Commanders put up an inspiring fight against the 49ers, but can you feel good about it?
It's just bad situational football all around.
For about two and a half quarters, it felt like the Niners were going to win by a billion. It felt like this game would be the death knell for Quinn heading into the bye week, and the players had completely quit.
But they fought until the end, which could provide Quinn with a much-needed reprieve.
Although Daronte Jones' defense deserves credit for locking in to shift the momentum, most of Washington's comeback was more about what the Niners did wrong than what they did right.
Penalties killed San Francisco in the second half. That was the only reason the Commanders had any chance of getting back into the contest.
The Niners gave Washington plenty of chances to steal a win, but the road team couldn't capitalize. All in all, it's the little game management-related quirks that keep coming back to bite the Commanders.
And after last week's debacle and the promises from both Quinn and Daniels in the days that followed, that was supposed to be a point of emphasis moving forward.
Instead, it's just more empty noise until proven otherwise.
This is an undisciplined and poorly executing football team.
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