Sunday proved to be a deflating day for the Washington Commanders, an all-too-familiar feeling, in what was expected to be a winnable game. Minnesota extended Washington’s losing streak to eight in a 31-0 loss, falling to 3-10 in 2025.

“What I told the team was I thought we took a step forward last week, and tonight, I thought we took three steps back,” head coach Dan Quinn said after Sunday’s loss.

“Tonight, to me, none of it was acceptable. Four division games in our season, and it is an absolute must that we recapture that forward progress that I saw in the last week because we absolutely did not have that tonight in all three phases all the way through.”

But maybe as concerning as the outcome itself was the loss of a pair of offensive stars in the third quarter, first quarterback Jayden Daniels then tight end Zach Ertz.

Daniels, who made his first appearance since the week nine loss vs. Seattle, re-injured his elbow before heading into the medical tent but head coach Dan Quinn said it was his decision the second year quarterback did not return to the game.

“[Jayden] was questionable to return and could have. It was my decision to sit him out. As a team at this point, we were off and felt like that was the right call for us to go,” he added.

Quinn later revealed that early signs point to a “serious knee injury” for Ertz.

“This guy is one hell of a competitor in every way and to see the frustration and emotion with that, all of us are feeling that. He’ll have imaging tomorrow.”

“It’s an important development time for him. Like there's no, zero risk game. Tried to manage that, but for the development point of it, it's important. It was my decision to sit him. I felt we didn't hit our space to be close like we wanted to be. I thought he had a really good week, two weeks, really practice. And so having the guys come back, I felt like, all right, this another chance to take another step forward. And so when we didn't today as a team, I think all of that was a contributing factor, not one position or one play.”

Now, Washington will likely return to the field next weekend short-handed as they have done routinely through 2025, yet this time marks the restart of divisional play. Washington will head to New York to face the Giants"before its first of two matchups against Philadelphia, then first at home before closing out the season in Philadelphia, with a Christmas Day matchup vs. Dallas sandwiched in between.

"We still got our division games left, just try to take it one at a time," wide receiver Terry McLaurin said postgame. "We’ve got a Giants team, throw out the record in a division game so we got to go out on the road and do a lot better than we did today - take care of the football, sustaining drives offensively, creating turnovers, helping the defense get off the field. Any of those things. We just didn’t play any complimentary football."