A Columnist Called Washington's Collapse a Mirage Because the Quarterback Barely Played. The Same Elbow Has Gone Again.
Rob Woodfork argued the 5-12 season was an availability illusion, not a decline. Jayden Daniels has now dislocated the same elbow for a second straight year.
In July, Rob Woodfork wrote the most reassuring thing a Washington fan could read. The 5-12 season, he argued at WTOP, was not evidence of a team falling apart. It was evidence of a team playing without its quarterback, and those are different problems with different remedies.
Useful next steps
His case was built on availability rather than on optimism. Jayden Daniels started seven games that year and finished only four of them, which is a smaller sample than the record implies, and Woodfork's conclusion was that the collapse measured his absence rather than the roster's quality. The distinction he drew is a real one and worth keeping. A roster that collapses is a different object from a roster that is intact but missing the player everything runs through, and the remedies could not be further apart - the first needs rebuilding and years, the second needs only for one man to stay upright. Woodfork was arguing Washington had the second problem, which is by far the better one to have, provided it stays a one-off.
The team that went 5-12 last season was never the team that went 12-5, and the reason is not complicated: The quarterback barely played.— Rob Woodfork, columnist, WTOP, writing in July
He pushed the point further than most would: "So Washington's offense didn't just have a bad season. It basically played without one." As an explanation of what happened it is hard to argue with. As a forecast it carries an obvious dependency, and that dependency has now been tested twice. Daniels dislocated his left elbow again - the second time in as many seasons that his non-throwing elbow has gone - and the mirage thesis has to survive a version of the same circumstance rather than merely explain the last one.
The thesis, and the thing that tests it
"The team that went 5-12 last season was never the team that went 12-5… The quarterback barely played."
"Washington's offense didn't just have a bad season. It basically played without one."
Daniels started just seven games that season and finished only four of them.
A dislocated left elbow — the second straight year the same non-throwing elbow has gone.
"We will rally so hard around Marcus until Jayden is back."
Holding the season together until the quarterback returns is the plan that produced 5-12.
Dan Quinn's response was about the player rather than the season. "Man, are we bummed for him," the head coach said. "I thought he was really playing his ass off. And we will rally so hard around Marcus until Jayden is back." It is a generous answer and also an unintentionally precise statement of the problem: the plan is to hold the season together until the quarterback returns, which is the same plan that produced 5-12. The uncomfortable rebuttal to Woodfork is not that he misread last season - he probably read it correctly. It is that a quarterback who keeps missing this much time makes durability a property of the player rather than bad luck to be adjusted for, and a team built to be transformed by one man is a team that is 5-12 whenever he is unavailable. The generous reading is that two dislocations of a non-throwing elbow are closer to misfortune than to fragility. Both readings are available, and only one of them can be true for very long.
Woodfork's explanation of last season still looks right. Whether it works as a forecast depends on a joint that has now given way twice.
Mirage Or Fragility
A 12-5 roster does not become a 5-12 roster in one offseason. The record moved because the quarterback stopped playing.
Repeated absence stops being luck and becomes a property of the player, and a team built around one man is 5-12 without him.
Availability, not performance. Nobody disputes how good he is when he plays.
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Sources: WTOP — Column: Jayden Daniels' 7-game 2025 cameo made the Commanders' collapse a mirage, ProFootballTalk — Quinn: Commanders are bummed for Daniels, will rally around Mariota