The Commanders kicked a field goal with 1:40 left in Sunday’s game to cut Dallas’s lead to seven points and they gave themselves a chance to tie the game by forcing a punt.
It didn’t take them long to come through on offense. Jayden Daniels hit wide receiver Terry McLaurin with a pass that McLaurin broke for an 86-yard touchdown to make the score 27-26 with 21 seconds left to play. Commanders head coach Dan Quinn immediately signaled for an extra point that kicker Austin Seibert missed to the left.
The Cowboys would win 34-26 after returning the ensuing onside kick for a touchdown. Seibert was returning from a hip injury and had already missed two kicks, but Quinn said at his press conference that he never considered going for two after McLaurin scored.
“No. I thought after we score, we’d go for one,” Quinn said. “And the reason behind that thought, let’s get back into it but we don’t have to decide it on this play.”
The Commanders had gone for two earlier in the game and gotten it, so they may have already used the only play they really trusted in that spot and that would certainly factor into the decision to trust their kicker to make a short kick that would set the stage for overtime. That didn’t work out, though, and the Commanders now have a three-game losing streak that has made their playoff odds a little longer.
