The Commanders’ starlight season ends with hugs and hanging heads, as they often do

First, a sort of closure. Washington Commanders tight end Zach Ertz walked from Lincoln Financial Field, home of the team that drafted him. He held up the sign language symbol for i love you to the crowd, violently twisting the muscles in his face, it seemed, in an attempt to keep from crying. (The Philadelphia Eagles fans hanging over the edge of the stands were, contrary to popular belief, incredibly well-behaved.)

Respite arrived in the form of a bear-sized human in a green Eagles Starter jacket. Fletcher Cox, Ertz’s former teammate, appeared from behind a collapsible yellow barrier and engulfed Ertz in a gigantic hug. For a few moments there was no need to say anything or go anywhere.

It was just after 6:30 PM ET, just after the fall of glittering green and silver confetti and the blare of the Black Eyed Peas. Ertz was the last of a line of Commanders veterans to walk off the field toward a black poster sign in the visiting team’s locker room that they would all sign, in gold trim, one last time. It said: WE BEAT EVERY TEAM WE PLAY. Without Ertz (12-year veteran, age 34, one-year, $3 million contract), without Austin Ekeler (eight-year veteran, age 29, two-year, $8 million contract), without Bobby Wagner (13-year veteran, age 34, one-year, $6 .5 million contract), one of the most amazing championship games in recent NFL history would have been impossible. They brought far more than competence and the ability to keep a rookie quarterback within the confines. They facilitated their dreams of a second-chance head coach, knocked off the seemingly infallible Detroit Lions in the divisional round and before a 55-23 loss to the Eagles here in Philadelphia, helped reawaken a long dormant fan base.

Some test flights implode right there, on the ground. This one almost reached the moon in one shot.

If this was it for one, some of them or all of them, helping lift the sulking Washington franchise could be among the biggest bullet points on their resumes. To see them all trudge off, a mixture of devastated relief, deep sorrow and disbelief would have been heartbreaking.

“The NFL is kind of a brutal thing,” Ekeler said. “Only one team can finish the season.”

That is, of course, until we start at the beginning. Or at least what only seem like beginnings. Jayden Daniels sat with his back pressed up against a black cinder block wall, scrolling through his phone. An employee waited nearby to remove him from his pads, which remained stuck to his shoulders more than an hour after the match.

A few moments earlier, he had tried to put into words the strangeness of this night, one of the first times in a while this starry season where he was powerless to change an outcome or avoid the inevitable. Here was someone with a lifetime of football ahead of him, unlike some of his teammates who waited until the last minute to cross over from grass to concrete, as extras in Field of dreams on the way to the cornfield. Daniels set NFL rookie quarterback records for completion percentage in a season, rushing yards, postseason passing yards, postseason passing touchdowns and franchise rookie passing record. He’ll cap it off in a week by winning the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year award.

And yet, “Obviously, it stinks,” he said. “Pardon my language, but it stinks.”

Daniels said his head coach, Dan Quinn, ever the optimist, made sure to tell everyone about the good. To enjoy this time they still had together. To enjoy being with a group of people who made a difference; a team hardened in cement and left for dead. Quinn himself lingered on the walk between his postgame press conference and the locker room, the only sound the loud clapping of hands on the back as he hugged every player who crossed his path.

Daniels said he appreciated the group of veterans who made the rounds comforting, hugging, or in the case of Ertz, just enjoying being a part of those postgame moments, reliving plays and moments; preserve these glimpses of time.

“I’m taking this loss pretty hard, but having these guys around, it means a lot,” Daniels said.

Before The power of the eagles took overbefore Saquon Barkley began to break back on yet another opponent, Daniels drove the Commanders right down the field on an opening drive that was a dizzying mix of pace, perfectly designed plays that paired his most reliable receivers on hitting linebackers and the QB’s own runs to avoid pressure. . Just briefly, this was a vision for the team that was walking a tightrope into the postseason. It was a vision of Hail Mary Commanders. It was a vision of success, of a new normal in DC, of ​​the beginning stages of real, relevant football life that was unimaginable even months ago.

Those are the moments Quinn wants them to hold on to. These are the moments this unorthodox mix of old and young, beginning and end, helped to create. The rest, Daniels said, is part of his next mission. To “never feel this way again.”