Jayden Daniels gives himself a 24-hour rule to reflect on a loss before moving on to the next challenge. The Washington Commanders' tie with the New York Giants might have required a little more time than that.
"It might have been a little [more like] 48 hours for me," Daniels said after Thursday's practice.
Before the Commanders began preparations for their Monday Night Football matchup with the San Francisco 49ers, Daniels addressed his teammates and took responsibility for his part in the final play of overtime that led to the tie, vowing that "it'll never happen again."
"We tied, but it was a fail in my eyes, and I know I'm better than that," Daniels said. "I hold myself to a higher standard than that."
Daniels, who had an otherwise impressive day in his return to the field, ran a play with 12 seconds left in overtime and took a sack resulting in no gain. The offense did not get to run another play as time expired before Daniels and his teammates could line up to spike the ball.
Daniels acknowledged that the error was "uncharacteristic" for him.
"It's on me at the end," Daniels said. "Regardless of what happens, I'm the person on the field that's supposed to calm everything, control everything, and I failed to the standard I hold myself to and the standard in this organization."
Daniels said that the play, among others in the game, kept him up at night. He thought about what happened and how he could have done things differently in the moment. He said that offensive coordinator David Blough "communicated the situation" on the drive. The Commanders did not have any timeouts left, meaning that any play they ran in that moment needed to result in a player running out of bounds to stop the clock or be thrown away. Daniels acknowledged that he needs to be more aware of the situation.
"Don't even put it on the coaches," Daniels said. "I gotta be...more aware, go out there and manage the game. And I did not do that, so it doesn't matter what happens on the sideline between the coaches or anything like that. I gotta notice everything that's happening and make sure that we're in the right situation to win the football game."
Daniels doesn't intend to make the same mistake twice, and he's going to do whatever he can to ensure that what happened against the Giants does not repeat itself.
"It's just about my process and moving forward, and learning from it and moving on," Daniels said.
Daniels said his teammates were also supportive of him.
"I would say they know how much this game means to me, and just a lapse like that is uncharacteristic for myself, and like I said, not the standard that I hold myself to. So, obviously they're supportive of it, and, they're all saying we're just gonna move forward from this and get ready for the next week's game and there's nothing we can do in the past."
And one of them gave him some advice.
"Marcus [Mariota] kinda told me -- I'm not gonna say I'm one of the greats -- but he told me every great one has been through adversity in their career, and you gotta deal with it," Daniels said. "You gotta learn from it and move forward and not dwell on it or let it affect you."
Daniels said that, in that moment, "you feel like you let everybody around you down," but he and his teammates are moving forward. They still have 12 games left on the schedule, and their next one is important.
"You always gotta continue to try to improve, keep moving forward, because we do have a very good test with the 49ers coming up on Monday night."
