A viral lip-reading clip from the Commanders' loss to the 5-0 49ers suggested the coach lost track of the down, but he says that is not what happened.
The Commanders' trip to San Francisco to face the 5-0 49ers turned into a game management headache for coach Dan Quinn. On a fourth-and-two from the 49ers' 13, quarterback Jayden Daniels threw incomplete into the end zone, and Washington was then flagged for an illegal shift. ESPN's cameras caught Quinn appearing to ask about the down, and the clip quickly went viral with lip-readers suggesting he didn't realize it was fourth down.
ESPN's Dan Orlovsky piled on during halftime coverage with Pat McAfee, saying Quinn should have kicked a field goal instead of going for it. McAfee said it sounded like Quinn didn't know what down it was, calling that "a real problem."
Quinn addressed the moment with reporters nearly an hour after the game. He said he "definitely knew it was fourth down" and explained he was actually responding to a question about whether a field goal was possible after the illegal shift penalty, since a penalty on fourth down results in a turnover on downs rather than another chance to kick.
The sequence came on a day Washington also lost guard Sam Cosmi to injury, adding to the scrutiny on Daniels and the coaching staff's decision-making.