DETROIT — This was last Tuesday, at
Someone asked Washington Commanders safety Quan Martin about the huge task facing Washington against the Detroit Lions, the 15-2, No. 1-seeded, bye-week-having Lions. And about all the playmakers Detroit had on offense.
“I think they’ve got a great team and great players. So do we,” Martin said, with a bit of an edge.
The Commanders were all edge Saturday night at Ford Field.
They went for it on fourth down, over and over and over. They put enough hats on enough Lions enough times — not a lot of times, mind you, for the Lions were still very potent offensively, but enough — to force five turnovers, including a pick six by the aforementioned Mr. Martin, an interception that was finalized by Washington linebacker Frankie Luvu planting Detroit quarterback Jared Goff into the turf as Martin waltzed by into the end zone.
But mostly, the Commanders’ offense was a scythe, cutting through the Lions’ defense at will, the key cog in the 45-31 win.
goodnight, dmv pic.twitter.com/cER6MLybke
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) January 19, 2025
Washington gained almost 500 yards of offense. It held the ball for almost 34 minutes. It didn’t have a single turnover, in one of the loudest and toughest road environments in the league. The Commanders scored on six of nine non-kneeldown possessions. Tress Way punted … once.
It did not matter that the rising decibel level in the stadium resembled the temperature of a very sick person throughout the evening: 103 … 105 … 107. It didn’t matter that Detroit, whose defense has been strafed by injuries throughout the season, had linebacker Alex Anzalone back for the playoffs. It didn’t matter that the Lions were 8 1/2-point favorites. None of it mattered because Kliff Kingsbury called damn near a perfect game and Jayden Daniels executed damn near perfectly under center. And Washington’s offensive line, even after losing Pro Bowl guard Sam Cosmi in the first half to a knee injury, was damn near flawless under the most trying of circumstances.
And they’re going to the NFC Championship Game as a result.
Read that sentence again.
The Washington Commanders, who were 4-13 a year ago, a franchise of ill repute for a generation, are going to the NFC Championship Game next Sunday, either in
This made Magic Johnson giggle. Like, really giggle.
Johnson, part of the team’s ownership group, was asked to contemplate how a team that was 4-13 a year ago is now one win from the Super Bowl. He thought about it for a moment. And then … he giggled. And doubled over. It’s that preposterous, and yet, it’s that real.
“It’s beautiful,” he finally got out.
The Lions weren’t expecting a game. They were planning a coronation for a team that had been dominant throughout the regular season, even after losing All-Pro defensive end Aidan Hutchinson in October. The radio guys in town predicted an easy night over the Commanders, who supposedly had only two players of significance on offense: Daniels and Terry McLaurin. There was talk of braving the cold weather for the inevitable Super Bowl parade downtown next month.
Well …
“Surreal moment for the Washington fan base, the whole DMV. It’s just an awesome feeling,” said Daniels, who went a casual 22-of-31 for 299 yards, two touchdowns, no picks and a 122.9 quarterback rating.
Washington’s running game, which had been somnolent for a month, came back to life Saturday, gaining 182 yards against the Lions. Brian Robinson Jr., who hadn’t had much burst in December, averaged 5.1 yards per carry with two touchdowns. For once, Daniels wasn’t the Commanders’ leading rusher.
Dyami Brown, famously dissed two years ago by Detroit’s Amon-Ra St.Brown, continued his outstanding postseason, catching six passes for 98 yards, including a huge 38-yard post just before halftime that set up Daniels’ 5-yard touchdown pass to Zach Ertz. McLaurin caught four passes for 87 yards, taking a screen 58 yards to the house in the second quarter behind great blocks from Olamide Zaccheaus and Dyami Brown as Washington beat a Detroit blitz, and McLaurin beat Detroit safety Kerby Joseph to the pylon.
“Jayden threw the ball out there, and I had great blocks,” McLaurin said. “We talk about, all the time, ‘running through the smoke’ — when you’ve got that little opening, just hit the crease. I tried to hit it as fast as I could. I’ve been working my butt off all year to try and get better running after the catch, and it showed up.”
The defense was opportunistic, not dominant; the Lions put up 521 yards of offense. But defensive end Dorance Armstrong’s strip of Goff led to the first turnover, a fumble recovered by Luvu. Martin’s pick six was another. Jeremy Chinn’s pick in the final minute sealed the deal. And rookie corner Mike Sainristil had two picks of his own.
THAT’S 2 FOR @MikeSainristil❕
📺 #WASvsDET FOXpic.twitter.com/D8S9ddhdsi
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) January 19, 2025
Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson has been brilliant for two years, killing team after team with trick plays dialed up at just the right moments. Saturday, he called another one early in the fourth quarter with Washington up 38-28: an option pass by wide receiver Jameson Williams off a reverse. Williams was looking for running back Jahmyr Gibbs sneaking out of the backfield. But Sainristil, whom Washington was giddy to get in the second round, undercut the route for the interception. It looked like he baited Williams into the throw. His smile gave him away.
“Just stay disciplined,” Sainristil said. “They were in a position where they had to take some chances.”
You could ask Commanders coach Dan Quinn, I guess.
“I knew he wasn’t going to fall for that,” Quinn said as he left his postgame news conference.
Again, Washington declined most field goal attempts or punts, going for it on fourth down five times. And the Commanders converted four of them, one coming via a penalty against Detroit for having too many men on the field on fourth-and-2 from the Lions’ 5 early in the fourth quarter. Two plays later, Robinson banged it in from the 1 to put the Commanders back up 10.
Washington’s offensive line was damn near pristine. Daniels got hit a couple of times, but considering the noise and the injury to Cosmi, the Commanders’ line was as close to perfect as one could expect. Trent Scott came in for the injured Cosmi — who is the guy who signals center Tyler Biadasz when to snap the ball on silent counts in loud stadiums like Detroit’s — and the execution of the snap, the checks, the sliding protections, went off like clockwork.
“Again, the coaches did a tremendous job of putting us in the right position,” guard Nick Allegretti said. “The communication’s expected. When it’s expected, you might not hear (the check to another play), but you can read the lips, or you hear part of the word, and you say, ‘That’s the word I was waiting for.’ So, it’s easy. When you’re shuffling your papers and you’re like, ‘Why are we calling that?’ — because you don’t hear s—. When you’re prepared well, it puts you in a good place. Regardless, it’s going to be loud next week, wherever we’re at.”
And Scott, who’d played tackle off the bench all season, didn’t flinch when he had to go inside and replace Washington’s best offensive lineman.
“F— yeah,” Allegretti said. “Awesome. Trent did a hell of a job, man.”
It’s so often untrue when people on teams talk about “family” and “brotherhood” when describing their locker rooms or clubhouses. So often it’s lip service, designed to cover up the holes in talent or character or leadership that cause so many teams to collapse under their own weight. It is easy to get caught up in the magical notion that there is something special in Ashburn this season — not just the star quarterback but an entire team, built on the fly by a first-year general manager and a new coach, in service to an owner who just got the team a year and a half ago.
It’s easy to be seduced by that notion.
But then you say the following sentence out loud: “The Washington Commanders are going to be in the NFC Championship Game, a win away from reaching the Super Bowl.”
And you believe it.
(Photo of Zach Ertz: Junfu Han / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
