The Washington Commanders have regressed in 2025. They are 3-8, four games out of a playoff spot, and sitting in 14th in the overall NFC standings. Things are looking bleak.
However, the latest injury updates coming out of D.C. Mean their season is not dead. Not quite yet.
There are many reasons for the Commanders' regression in 2025. Among them is a defense that was good because of its "experience" last year has quickly aged from "experienced" to "over-the-hill".
But the most obvious is the fact that they've been without their QB1, Jayden Daniels, for the past few weeks after the second-year stud suffered a gruesome elbow dislocation against the Seahawks in early November.
Alongside him in the training room throughout this whole time has been his main man, WR1 Terry McLaurin. The wideout has missed all but four games this season as he battles a quad issue.
Old defense, injured offense. It paints a depressing picture for Dan Quinn’s team. But that picture is starting to brighten, and just in the nick of time. Quinn announced that not only has Daniels returned to practice (though he has not been cleared for contact and is a “long shot” to play in Week 13), but Scary Terry was back on the field as well.
“It wasn’t like a full-speed, hauling ass day but that’s kind of what we’re hoping the progression for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday looks like for he and some of his teammates. But yeah, he’s really worked hard, so to see us take the next step, we’ll see where it takes us, but it was awesome to have him out there today.”
Dan Quinn on seeing Terry McLaurin (quad) on the practice field today.
— Ben Standig (@BenStandig) November 24, 2025
Today was a light session. Gearing up for the main practices later in the week pic.twitter.com/1nJNne8MbA
So, both of their offensive Pro Bowlers from 2024 are back on the practice field. But as Quinn said, they’ve still got some hurdles to clear before they can get back into full-speed and game-type situations.
A run to the actual playoffs seems unlikely at this point, but you really never know. If Marcus Mariota (who will start in Week 13) can somehow pull out a win at home against the 9-2 Broncos this week, they have the struggling Vikings and Giants the next two weeks.
After that, they will hope a team or two that’s in the playoff picture right now will collapse, or they go into their final three week stretch against the Cowboys and Eagles looking to play big-time spoiler if there is a division title race there.
Either way, Daniels and McLaurin taking this big step suggests the Commanders could be in for some fun times to finish the season after having “been through some sh*t”, as Quinn put it on Monday, through the first 12 weeks of the 2025 campaign.