Turnovers doom Commanders against Giants in new low for 2023 season

On the bright side, the Commanders sacked Giants QB Tommy DeVito nine times. That's almost always a winning recipe... except when you turn the ball over six times.

Of the turnovers, three were Sam Howell picks, two were offensive fumbles with Washington in Giants territory, and the final was a special teams fumble on the opening play of the second half.

It's simply inexcusable, especially against a Giants team that is one of the worst in the NFL. This may be the final nail in the coffin of HC Ron Rivera and his staff. Disciplined football had been Washington's identity throughout Rivera's tenure in past years, but in 2023 the team has been anything but. Rivera seems checked out, and so do his players.

Howell will take his share of criticism for the loss, but his teammates did him no favors. Even after Logan Thomas and Chris Rodriguez both fumbled away potential scoring drives, Howell had a chance to lead his team down the field for a game-winning score but offensive lineman Charles Leno's false start penalty killed any momentum the Commanders had.

The next play, with Washington forced to use its final timeout to stop the ten-second runoff, Howell tried to throw the ball away. The pass was intercepted and returned for a game-sealing pick-six.

Simply put, this was a game that the Commanders could and should have handily won but did everything in their power to lose. Even the team showers decided to join in on the disaster of a performance, just to put the cherry on top.

Washington fans still have reasons for optimism in the long run, with Howell having established himself as a quarterback to build around and likely a new coaching staff coming in 2024. Most importantly of all, Dan Snyder is no longer in the picture. Better days are ahead, and no one should be believing otherwise.

But at 4-7, this season for Washington is officially lost. This team will not make the playoffs or be playing meaningful football in December. After Thanksgiving Thursday's rivalry game against Dallas, there's not a whole lot of incentive to tune into Commanders games for the rest of the year.