The Offseason Is Already Over
Washington spent the summer rebuilding around a quarterback who is now listed as doubtful, and every dollar and every decision made between February and August has to be reconsidered in that light. The Stefon Diggs signing, the Zach Ertz retention, the scramble to replace Laremy Tunsil — all of it was predicated on Jayden Daniels being upright and throwing footballs. He isn't. A dislocated elbow suffered against Dallas has done in two quarters what a 5–12 season and a cascading preseason injury crisis couldn't quite finish: it has collapsed the entire architecture of Washington's rebuild before it had a chance to prove itself.
This is not a new kind of disaster for this franchise. It is, however, a particularly cruel one. The 2024 season — 14 wins, genuine optimism, a young quarterback who looked like the answer — now feels like a fever dream. What followed was a 5–12 collapse, an eight-game losing streak that stretched from mid-October into December, and a roster that won only one of six games decided by a single possession. The offseason was supposed to be the correction. Instead it has been a relay race of bad news, and Daniels' elbow is the baton being handed to Marcus Mariota.
Mariota is a capable professional who has started games in this league, won games in this league, and lost plenty of them too. What he is not is the reason Washington signed Stefon Diggs to a deal worth up to $12 million. He is not the reason Terry McLaurin has spent a career waiting for the right quarterback to arrive. He is not the quarterback who makes this offense dangerous enough to compensate for a defensive line that has been gutted by injury and a left tackle situation that went from Pro Bowl to patchwork when Tunsil tore his triceps in August. Mariota himself came into this season already compromised, having sprained his MCL in the preseason opener. He is active now, which matters, but active and ready are not the same thing.
The receiving corps on paper remains real. McLaurin is available. Diggs is here. Ertz has been one of the more reliable tight ends in the league for the better part of a decade. Jacory Croskey-Merritt is a functional back. But an offense built around weapons only works when the triggerman can exploit them, and Daniels — who in seven games last season threw for over 1,200 yards, added nearly 300 on the ground, and gave this franchise its first legitimate reason for optimism in years — is not that triggerman right now.
The precedent here is uncomfortable to cite but necessary. Teams that lose franchise quarterbacks early in seasons while already operating with compromised offensive lines and depleted defenses do not typically find a way. They manage. They compete in some games. They occasionally steal one. What they do not do is contend. The 2026 Commanders, before this injury, were already a team that needed everything to go right. Nothing has gone right since training camp opened.
My declaration, and I'll stand on it however long it takes to prove out: this season is effectively over as a meaningful evaluation of whether Washington's rebuild is working. You cannot judge Diggs against a Mariota offense running behind a patchwork line. You cannot judge this defense — already short its best defensive linemen, already thin at linebacker, already missing starters at corner — against the teams it will face without knowing what the offense can do to keep games close. Last year this team went 1-for-6 in tight games. The margin for error was already nonexistent. It is now negative.
The only honest question left for 2026 is how long Daniels is actually out. If the timeline is measured in weeks rather than months, the season has a slim argument for relevance. If it stretches deeper into the fall, Washington is playing for draft positioning and the chance to see what the young pieces around Daniels can become. That is not nothing. But it is a long way from where this franchise thought it was standing in August, when the Diggs signing looked smart and the optimism felt earned. The elbow changed the math. The rest is just waiting to find out how badly.