The Jayden Daniels Hail Mary Is Worth Savoring, No Matter What Happens Next

Some time not long after the Hail Mary landed in Noah Brown’s hands, after the grown men in the end zone stopped their leaping embrace, after Dan Quinn found the headset he ripped off the top of his forever-backward hat, we will pivot to the cold mechanics of the Washington Commanders’ season. 

With the Commanders now owning sole possession of first place in the NFC East through eight weeks, owning a franchise quarterback, owning a Tony Stark–like origin story and all of the necessary component parts for a deep run into the winter months, we will start to wonder about the administrative abilities of Washington’s new front office to flip the switch far sooner than they—or anyone else—had expected. 

This is how sports go in the age of ready-made dopamine. We can see one of the most unfathomable and beautiful plays we have ever seen, we can see a fan base thrust from its tortured past into something far more proud and palatable, we can see one of the remaining few instances in our culture that still renders us child-like and dumbfounded—then we quickly ask, What’s next? 

What I’m about to say could be instructive advice for a handful of fan bases after an absolutely wild Sunday in which Jameis Winston, Malik Willis and Jacoby Brissett all blew our minds in a Red Zone–melting cacophony that should come with listed bodily side effects (like a fast heart beat—don’t be gross). But it’s especially true for Commanders fans: Let’s just stay here for a moment. Let’s be here right now. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow. We have no idea what will happen at the Nov. 5 trade deadline. We have no idea what channel on the universe’s infinite cable menu will spring up, and we have no idea what this means—or if it means anything at all. 

So, let’s allow it to soak in. Washington’s superhero quarterback Jayden Daniels, quite possibly the best player selected in the 2024 draft, questionable to even play after suffering a rib injury last week, completed a pair of passes with one timeout remaining to move his offense from his own 24-yard line to near midfield. Then, he dropped back, evaded two rushers, planted his back foot on his own damn 35-yard line and launched a ball that tracked like one of those tiny, golden fireworks just before the grand finale. An upside-down U-curved journey that landed in a mass of humanity, got swatted into the air by a player who had been jawing with fans during the play, and coddled in the arms of the only player out of 21 other men on the field standing in the end zone. A stadium full of people who were ready to burn that place to the ground two years ago while their former owner fled the country to evade congressional inquiries, just looked for someone to shake and smile and scream at for a second.  

Read that paragraph three times before moving on.

The timing of this game is fortuitous, because it aligns with the conclusion of the baseball postseason, which is still unique among all sports because of its ability to funnel so many incredible moments, songs, people, energy, dance moves, secret hand shakes, hair styles, McDonald’s mascot costumes and other strange minutiae into this meaningful moment in time. Here in the greater New York area, you can still drive by massive Halloween skeletons with an OMG necklace on, or a child with a Grimace costume. 

But it wasn’t long before the Mets, who started the season as one of baseball’s worst teams, got caught up in conversations about how this constellation of memories now prompts heightened expectations. They have to be better. They have to make us feel this way all the time. 

We know that’s impossible. Hell, Commanders fans know this better than anyone. It wasn’t that long ago that Robert Griffin III and Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay and Matt LaFleur were all in a room together cooking up some of the most stupefying offensive football we’d ever seen, amid a stunning and unexpected run to the postseason. Please don’t make me out to be the bad guy for bringing this up, and please don’t think that I am comparing Daniels to Griffin, or wishing any ill-will upon him, or am even wedging these two names into the same sentence for any other reason than to tell you that it doesn’t last forever. That sometimes this is the gift. That sometimes it doesn’t culminate in a Super Bowl and that, even if all this planning, all the right trades, all the correct draft picks, all the perfect calls lands you in a Super Bowl you still get the middle finger from Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid because this game will almost always break your heart. 

Some time in the middle of next week, the first caller will phone a D.C. radio sports talk show to ask about the availability of Tee Higgins. The first reporter will ask about what this team needs to take the next step. The people at the game will stop talking about what they saw, stop shoving it down the throats of their friends on Instagram and unknowingly take a step back into a sporting world that we feel owes us a little something more. I’m here to warn everyone what a mistake that will be. Because sometimes this is the best it gets. And man, was that awesome.