Commanders' Hail Mary a healing moment for Washington football

The roar of the Landover, Maryland crowd told it all. The second that Jayden Daniels' Hail Mary pass was tipped into the hands of a waiting Noah Brown, 30 years of anguish was lifted from the collective soul of the Commanders franchise.

It may legitimately have been that long since Washington football fans had last experienced a moment quite like this one. This is an organization that hasn't won a playoff game since January 2006, hasn't won more than 10 games in a season since 1991 and that, throughout the entire tenure of Dan Snyder's ownership, seemed to only treat its fans to heartbreak and humiliation.

This was the type of finish that, for decades, would have been totally on-brand had it happened against the Commanders. Just envision the image of the other team euphorically celebrating such a play at (formerly) FedEx Field, in a stadium packed with equally euphoric opposing fans, while the TV camera pans to a flabbergasted Snyder in the press box. The head coach would give a clueless postgame presser full of excuses, and every local analyst would spend the next week woe-is-me-ing about how Washington can't ever have nice things.

It's not too hard to imagine because it's a movie Commanders fans had to watch countless times over the past few decades. Usually, the heartbreaking moments were more of the death-by-a-thousand-knives variety, and before the final play, it seemed as if Sunday was going to be another one of those. Washington had dominated the game yet could not find the end zone aside from two would-be touchdowns that were called back by review or penalty, and it was just enough to keep the Bears within striking range.

A 12-0 Washington lead evaporated into a 12-15 deficit after the Bears converted a go-ahead score with less than 30 seconds on the clock, and it seemed the Commanders were going to lose their first home game all year. Every remnant from the Snyder era is gone — the team name is different, the quarterback is different, the coach is different and even the home stadium's sponsor is different. Yet on the field, it was still the same old story.

Until it wasn't. For D.C. diehards, the last-second miracle heave had to harken back memories of Evgeny Kuznetsov's series-winning overtime goal in Game 6 the 2018 NHL Eastern Conference semifinals or Juan Soto's go-ahead hit in the 2019 NL wild-card game. It was one of those magical moments that's not supposed to be possible for this cursed franchise, and now, a whole new world of possibilities has been unlocked.

Wherever the journey goes from here, the day of October 27, 2024 will be known as the day that the Washington Commanders — now 6-2 on the season — were reborn. For the first time in a long time, it truly feels as if pride and passion have been restored to a franchise that was once among the NFL's powerhouses.

The new age of Washington football has officially begun.