The Washington Commanders have had about as bad a start to the 2026 season as one could have imagined, currently sitting at 0-2, and with quarterback Jayden Daniels now out of the lineup due to a dislocated elbow. It's the same elbow he had problems with last year, most recently suffering the injury on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys.
Up next for the Commanders is a matchup against the reigning Super Bowl champion Seahawks, with quarterback Marcus Mariota getting the start in place of Daniels, and recently, former offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie, who coached Mariota with the Tennessee Titans, had a wild take on Mariota's approach to the challenge.
“If Dan Quinn walked into that meeting room and told Marcus Mariota, ‘You’ve got two options to win this game Sunday,’” Robiskie said. “‘You can walk across the Potomac stark naked, or you can walk through a field full of lions wearing nothing but a loincloth made of pork chops,’ he’d take the lions. He’d go the hard way.”
It's certainly one way to encapsulate the competitive fire that Mariota has been known for throughout his NFL career, quitting on the Atlanta Falcons midway through his tenure there aside.
Mariota has been a serviceable backup for quite some time now at the NFL level, but Commanders fans have to be growing antsy that Daniels' injury concerns are not just bad luck but the sign of something that will continue to repeat itself over time.
While the Seahawks will also likely be without their own starting quarterback, Sam Darnold, on Sunday, it's still hard to feel overly optimistic about Washington's chances of getting into the win column in this one.