After watching 20 games, 14 wins, and a run to the NFC Championship Game with a first-time GM, first-year head coach, and rookie QB, what did Joe Theismann take away from the Commanders’ 2024 season?
“If you look back at the season, there were a lot of games that could have gone either way for us, but I thought this team grew an awful lot through the course of the year. I think it matured,” Joe told BMitch & Finlay Monday. “I think Jayden certainly matured as the season went on and will continue to grow at the position, and I think he'll be an outstanding star in our league going forward, as other members of the team will be. We won two playoff games by not making mistakes, and any way you slice it, if you don’t make major mistakes, your chances of winning go up.”
To Joe’s point, somehow, they survived five turnovers the last time they faced Philly, but that wasn’t in the cards for the Commanders on Sunday – but still, one bad game does not a season narrative make.
“We gave Philadelphia too many short fields, too many opportunities to be able to put points on the board, and that’s really why we lost – but I don't think you can look at this game and say the season was a disappointment, not at all,” Joe said. “This was an incredible football season for the Commanders – for the players, for the organization, and more importantly, even for the fans to really, really get on board and have hope and optimism, true hope and true optimism for this team going forward.”
Theismann dissected the good, bad, and ugly of the NFC Championship Game with the guys, and as BMitch said that there’s a lot to learn from this game and the mistakes they made, this may be a classic case of you’ve got to learn how to lose to know how to win.
“I think they did a little bit of that right during the course of the year – going up to Detroit and winning that game made a world of difference to this team, and going down to Tampa and being able to win down there, win two big games on the road,” Theismann said. “I think there’s going to be an evaluation of guys that contributed tremendously, that are a little bit older, and we've got a lot of cap room as far as being able to acquire free agents, so there’s going to be turnover – the offensive line is always an area you can add people, and I think there and linebacker will be critical from additions – but as incredibly captivating as this year was, it’s a great foundation for Jayden to be able to build on. The way we won those last five or six games, we fought tooth-and-nail until the end, and I believe this team has built confidence in what they accomplished, and we've got pieces in place to be able to lay a good foundation.”
Take a listen to Theismann’s entire visit above, as he also goes into some thoughts on how certain positions played this year, what Jayden Daniels' offseason may look like, and more!