When Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn stepped to the podium for his pre-rookie minicamp press conference on Friday, he didn't mince words about the team's 2025 campaign. His description of the season? One word: "terribly."
It's a rare moment of raw honesty from an NFL head coach, especially one who led his team to the NFC Championship game just a year prior. Since taking the helm in 2024, Quinn has built his program on culture and brotherhood—and the players bought in immediately. That first season was magical: a 12-5 record and a deep playoff run that stunned the league. But the football gods had other plans in 2025, as Washington limped to a disappointing 5-12 finish.
So what happened? Injuries certainly played a role—star quarterback Jayden Daniels missed 10 games due to three separate injuries—but it was more than just bad luck. The good fortune that smiled on the Commanders in 2024 seemed to vanish entirely last season. Despite the struggles, Quinn's players remained locked in, but the front office wasn't standing still. General manager Adam Peters made sweeping changes this offseason, particularly on defense, and the coaching staff saw a shakeup in January with the departures of offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury and defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr.
When asked about instilling the team's culture into the rookie class this weekend, Quinn didn't shy away from the elephant in the room. "I think it should get tested, you know, to find where your mettle is when you have a season that goes well and then one that just went terribly," he said. "You want to dig in, you want to find answers, you want to make sure you can tweak things that need to be tweaked. But one thing that I know to be a fact, like there's some real competitors in this locker room and the standards they have as ball players and teammates, those are the things that help you get to where you want to get to."
In today's NFL, where coaches are often one bad season away from the hot seat, Quinn's transparency is refreshing. He didn't run from the truth—the Commanders were "terrible" in 2025. But for a team that knows what it feels like to soar and to stumble, that honesty might just be the foundation for a comeback.