The Takeaways, Week 2: Washington at Dallas
September 22, 2026
by Steve Thomas
Well, folks, that went horribly wrong, didn’t it? Washington lost to the hated Dallas Cowboys by a score of 37 – 20, but the truth is that Washington repeatedly sunk themselves, with the assistance of the refs on one play. The big story is obviously the injury to Jayden Daniels, but both Samuel Cosmi, Brandon Coleman, and others suffered injuries as well. This ended up being a pretty negative game, but the truth is that Washington could’ve had a chance to win had only a few things gone differently. Either way, the team is now 0 – 2 and facing the defending Super Bowl champions in week 3. Not good. The Takeaways for week 2 are below.
Jayden Daniels’ health status
When he went down with a dislocated elbow on the last play of the first half, Daniels was 11 for 17 for 96 yards, 64.7% completion percentage, and 1 touchdown, for a 99.1 quarterback rating, plus 7 carries for 69 yards, which is 9.9 yards per carry. Those passing numbers are good, but not great; however, the important part – other than the obvious – was that Daniels looked alot like the Daniels of 2024. Daniels’ was mostly sharp in his passes, with a couple of costly exceptions, and was moving like his rookie year. He was also playing out of the shotgun more than last week against the Eagles. That’s not a sustainable play style for him on a long term basis, but it was working, more or less, this week. His injured elbow was the same one as last year, which doesn’t bode well for his health or this season. Also, for those of you criticizing the coach for his decision to go for the touchdown on that play, if Daniels hurt his elbow by just falling after being tripped, it was bound to happen sooner or later. We’ll get more information on the injury later this week, but at this point, it’s hard not to label Daniels as injury prone.
Lost opportunities
Washington could have easily won this game. The instances of lost opportunities are many – Jayden Daniels missed a wide open Treylon Burks heading into the end zone, head coach Dan Quinn declined a chip-shot field goal, Antonio Williams missed an open Terry McLaurin in the end zone on a gadget play, Marcus Mariota missed a touchdown pass, and the refs appeared to get a call wrong on Dyami Brown on a touchdown pass in the third quarter. Washington had plenty of opportunities to at least make this game close, but failed to do so. I can blame the refs on the Brown play, but the rest of it was directly on Washington.
News flash: Washington’s secondary still stinks
How many times was some combination of CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens open in this game? And also, Jake Ferguson in the end zone? Lamb had 8 receptions for 153 yards, which is awful. Honestly, this wasn’t all the fault of Mike Sainristil, either. No, he wasn’t good, again, but the rest of the secondary failed as well at various times. The truth is that the entire secondary stinks right now. They are the weakest link on the team.
Washington’s running game fails
The team’s gameplan should have been to duplicate what the Giants did to the Cowboys in week 1. Instead, Washington had 35 passes as compared to 24 called running plays. I recognize that Washington was playing from behind in the second half. At halftime, though, Washington had 21 carries for 129 yards, which is 6.1 yards per carry, and that sounds great; however, this includes Daniels’ 7 scrambles for 69 yards. That leaves 14 called running plays for 60 yards for the running backs, which is 4.3 yards per carry. That’s . . . okay . . . but also included a 14 yard run by Rachaad White. Taking that play out leaves 13 plays for 54 yards, which is less okay. The point is that Washington should have focused on Dallas’ demonstrated weak run defense, but they didn’t do that very well.
Defensive line performance
If you want something of a positive, sort of, I’d say that while Washington’s defensive line didn’t exactly light up quarterback Dak Prescott, they did at times put some pressure on him. In general, this group looks more aggressive than they were last year, which is a good thing. At least most of the non-Daron Payne players. In addition, they held Dallas’ running game to just 3.1 yards per carry. I recognize that the Cowboys don’t have a stellar ground attack, but still . . . in a game like this, I’ll take it. Sorry, that’s all I have for a positive, folks.
Injuries, and more injuries
In addition to Daniels, Washington also had injuries to the current starting left tackle, Brandon Coleman, who himself was backing up the injured Laremy Tunsil, Sam Cosmi, Javon Kinlaw, and Nick Cross. I suspect that a couple of those will end up being minor, especially as compared to Daniels. But still: having that many starters go down in a game that, had a pretty simple set of alternate facts happened, Washington might have actually gotten a victory, is pretty terrible. Let’s all hope that this isn’t a sign of things to come.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next week after Washington’s battle against the defending Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks.