Commanders can’t escape the damage from years of dysfunction

The Washington Commanders' fairytale run to last season's NFC Championship game looks exactly that. It's been an unmitigated disaster this time around, giving everyone associated with the franchise a harsh dose of reality, bringing them crashing back down to earth.

A week after defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. was moved from the booth to the sideline, head coach Dan Quinn will now take over his duties. It's a necessary move, but one that's likely too late to save Washington's season.

It's also uncertain how much Whitt's demotion will even fix. Over the course of this season, the cracks in the Commanders' new leadership have been exposed, and it's going to take some time to repair them.

Commanders haven't built the right way, which was the price of early success

The more time that goes by, the more the Commanders' magical 2024 campaign looks like a perfect storm of momentum and good fortune, without any actual long-term growth being established. They brought in a new coaching staff, a new general manager, and a rookie quarterback. Everything they touched turned to gold.

In retrospect, it all seemed too good to be true.

Jayden Daniels was phenomenal; there's no taking that away. Dan Quinn has legitimate strengths as a head coach, and Adam Peters did what he needed to do after the Commanders' roster was left in no-man's land. But this was not a natural trajectory of a team that won four games the prior year. It didn't erase the fact that there was still plenty of work to do.

The Commanders have now had to reckon with this reality. So far, it's not going well.

Against the Detroit Lions, the culture issues reared their ugly head when Daron Payne was ejected for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown. Javon Kinlaw, who was also involved in the incident, was full of nothing but excuses.