It’s normal for ownership to stay silent or avoid public criticism after their head coaches make a mind-numbingly bad decision. But what Commanders head coach Dan Quinn did on Sunday was so unbelievably awful that at least one part of the ownership team is breaking that trend.
The Commanders had the ball at the Giants’ 26 with 55 seconds left in overtime. The clock was not ticking. Then the Commanders ran the ball for two yards. What happened next may be the worst case of clock mismanagement in NFL history.
With no timeouts left, Washington let precious seconds tick away by taking time they didn’t have, huddling up to run a play in which quarterback Jayden Daniels dropped back to throw before running the ball and losing a yard.
The Commanders didn’t get back to the line in time to snap the ball, and the clock ran out before Washington could kick a very makeable field goal to win.
Instead, they settled for a tie in a game they had to win, in what became arguably the worst clock-management case in NFL history.
Immediately, speculation about Quinn’s job security dominated social media. Commanders Limited Partner Magic Johnson fueled that speculation by tweeting about the embarrassing display.
“I’m in total disbelief that my Commanders had such poor clock management in today’s overtime game against the Giants,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “All we had to do was kick the field goal, and we would have won the game!”
Clearly, it’s not ideal for your boss to tell millions of people he’s in a state of “total disbelief” about your performance. As of this Sunday evening, Quinn has not been fired, and it remains at least somewhat unlikely he will be fired tomorrow.
However, someone has clearly fired a shot across his bow.