MADRID — Bringing the guys together for a road trip might be just what the Washington Commanders need to get the season back on track.
The Commanders (3-7) are in Madrid to face the Miami Dolphins on Sunday in the NFL’s final international game of the season. They’re hoping some camaraderie and quality time together in one of Europe’s top cities can help the team end a five-game losing streak.
“I told the team that today as a group, we are coming here to actually get stronger,” Commanders coach Dan Quinn said Wednesday in his first news conference in Madrid. “Some of that is connection, some of that is our practice and the way that we can do that together. But all of it will be done together.”
“That’s the first part of us getting stronger together,” Quinn added. “But that was the main goal, to get connected and actually get stronger during this week here together. And we think we can do that.”
The Commanders are coming off a 44-22 loss at home to the Detroit Lions. Their last win was at the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 5.
“As a team, I think getting away, having an opportunity to really kind of hunker down together, it’s been important, and it’s been great,” quarterback Marcus Mariota said. “I think guys going to dinner, just little things like that, connecting, especially with where we are in the season, I think it’s important just to kind of step away and I think it’s been good for us.”
The game is the seventh NFL game abroad this season, the most ever since the league started making a push to expand globally.
Washington remains without quarterback Jayden Daniels because of a dislocated left elbow he suffered during the team’s 38-14 loss to Seattle in Week 9. The Commanders will also be without defensive tackle Daron Payne, who was suspended for one game without pay by the NFL for hitting Detroit Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown in the second quarter against the Lions.
Quinn said Payne visited with the NFL and apologized. The coach said it was “out of character for him to do that. So, he wanted to be able to express his remorse for that incident.”
Quinn took over defensive coordinator duties this week. He has blamed poor execution for the team’s recent struggles.
“I do feel that way,” Quinn said. “And the reason why, I’ve seen where it hits good and I’ve seen where it doesn’t. So, had we not seen where we could hit the marks, I’d feel otherwise. So, that’s what we’re digging in hard on, to have this time together here on this trip to do those things, that’s important for us.”
The Dolphins are also 3-7 but Mike McDaniel’s team is coming off a 30-13 home victory over the Buffalo Bills.
Mariota said “never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d be sitting here today” after growing up in Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He said he brought his parents and brother to the game in Madrid, and many of the players were able to do some sightseeing in the Spanish capital.
“You got to find the happy medium,” he said. “We are here on business, and we have a job at hand … We understand that there’s opportunities to take some time away and to experience what Madrid has to offer, but also, we have guys that understand like, ‘Hey, there’s times to hunker down and let’s get things rolling and making sure that we’re ready to roll.’”
For a large part of their fairly fractured 2025 campaign, the Houston Texans have identified issues but failed to conclusively solve them.
Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans has served enough time in the NFL to know that perseverance and preaching the same core values provide answers over time, but it’s been proving difficult.
Perhaps the unlikely 19-point comeback that backup quarterback Davis Mills orchestrated can now offer a vital watershed for the Texans, and to a certain extent, also provide some proof to Ryans that he wasn’t just losing his mind.
“As a coach, you want to teach things,” Ryans said. “You want to harp on a certain play style and what is it going to take to win a game.”
“When you see your players go out and do that in a manner that you’ve been asking them to do, it’s encouraging. It’s exciting as a coach. That’s why you coach, to be able to get guys to see and do things that they may not.”
Ironically enough, for as cathartic as the 36-29 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars actually was, they can only truly capitalize upon it by putting it quickly behind them and moving on.
The key for coach Ryans will be to use the prime cuts of the victory to construct his next dish, but boiling down all the leftover bones will also be deemed equally as important.
“It may not look great from the onset, but it’s that belief that I have in all these guys as their coach,” Ryans said. “I know they can do it. I know we got great players. I know we have a great team. I’m always urging and pleading with them just to, ‘Hey, let’s just do it the right way. Let’s execute the right way. Let’s finish the right way because I know we’re capable of doing it.”
“That’s what it looks like. When you just do the things you’re supposed to do, you make the plays. It’s fun film to watch. Hopefully, it’s a confidence booster for everyone. When you do it the right way, we can win a lot of games.”
It must have been getting pretty frustrating for Ryans to appear on a weekly basis– only to subsequently find himself saying the same old things about seeking far better levels of execution.
The thing is, Texans fans were beginning to feel their third-year head coach was turning into a one-trick pony who was only ever going to preach that his guys were in tune enough with the game plan to win.
Of course, Ryans has only just edged his talented squad barely back into the picture now that they’re at the 4-5 mark, but plenty of hard graft is still required. Thankfully, pushing on with some wind in their sails will be a lot easier if the stellar defensive unit keeps on proving that it has a compelling case to be the best unit the league has to offer.
Ryans has the double-headed monster of Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. coming off the edge with furious intent, which sets them up nicely for the stretch run.
“I’m happy I never played quarterback because I’ll probably be taking a lot of sacks,” Ryans admitted. “The way Will plays, we know the effort, the intensity that he plays with. Danielle, he was exploding off the ball yesterday, playing violent, not slowing down. That only works with the interior guys getting the right push.”
“So, I thought our [defensive] tackles did a good job when we were able to push the pocket and they were able to collapse the edge. That’s how the rush works together. Will and Danielle, they’re definitely a scary force on the edge and two of the best edge rushers in the league. We’re blessed to have both of those guys as rushers on our team.”
Both Hunter and Anderson combined to register 4.5 sacks last Sunday on hapless Jags quarterback Trevor Lawrence, but the general levels of chaos they caused suggest a whole lot more is yet to come.
To a large extent, you can forgive Ryans for beating his own drum a little about the fact that he always knew his stud guys would come good, and how, somehow, a big and emphatic win would finally come to light.
Even so, you have to turn the page extremely quickly in the brutal, cutthroat landscape of the NFL, and even when you think you’ve found the answer.