Jayden Daniels Reflects on Commanders' Loss: 'How Can We Fight Through Adversity?'

Washington Commanders star Jayden Daniels is using the team's recent adversity to talk about how they can be better moving forward in their quest to make the playoffs.

Speaking to reporters after Thursday's 26-18 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, Daniels rhetorically asked "how can we fight through adversity?" while talking about what has gone wrong for the offense in the past two games:

"For us? Man, we've got to execute. We haven't been executing how we were before at the beginning half of the season. So, we've got to go back and, like I said, look at ourselves in the mirror. How can we get better? How can we keep improving? It's a long season, so there's going to be ups and downs, but how can we fight through adversity?"

The 2024 No. 2 draft pick has taken the NFL by storm and quickly established himself as the frontrunner for Offensive Rookie of the Year. Through 11 games, Daniels has 2,338 passing yards, 482 rushing yards and accounted for 14 touchdowns.

Just four days ago, Washington was sitting pretty in the NFC playoff race. It had a 7-2 record and was hanging with the Detroit Lions for home-field advantage.

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Commanders 28-27 on Sunday thanks to Russell Wilson's 32-yard touchdown pass to Mike Williams late in the fourth quarter. The Commanders had a quick turnaround on Thursday night by going to Philadelphia.

Now, the Commanders have fallen to the final wild card spot in the NFC after back-to-back losses. Their offense has been held to under 300 yards in both games after averaging 403.6 yards in eight games from Weeks 2-9.

Daniels has accounted for one touchdown in the past two games, a five-yard pass to Zach Ertz with 31 seconds remaining against the Eagles. He suffered a rib injury in Week 7 that has clearly impacted his performance.

Daniels set an NFL rookie record and Commanders franchise record for completion percentage in a single game in Week 3 when he completed 91.3 percent (21-of-23) of his passes in a win over the Cincinnati Bengals, earning NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors. He also made one of the most memorable plays of the year with his game-winning Hail Mary touchdown pass in a win against the Chicago Bears and 2024 No. 1 pick Caleb Williams.

Even though Kliff Kingsbury is only the offensive coordinator and not the head coach in Washington, his teams do have a history of falling off in the second half of the season dating back to his time at Texas Tech.

It's probably too strong to assume Kingsbury's past woes are what is ailing the Commanders right now. These past two games have been against defenses that rank second (Steelers) and sixth (Eagles) in points allowed per game.

Things should get easier next week for the Commanders when they host the Dallas Cowboys on Nov. 24. If their offense struggles against the second-worst scoring defense in the NFL, then it will be time to turn up the panic meter in Washington.