ASHBURN, Va. \u2014 Marcus Mariota will start at quarterback for the Washington Commanders on Sunday after Jayden Daniels went down with a dislocated left elbow.<\/p>\n
Commanders coach Dan Quinn said he might have an update on Daniels on Thursday or Friday but declined to share a timeline for the quarterback\u2019s return.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had imaging done (on Monday),\u201d Quinn said. \u201cHe\u2019ll see specialists early this week, Tuesday and Wednesday. We\u2019ll go through the process from there. \u2026 Until we go through that process, I\u2019d be guessing to give you any (timeline).\u201d<\/p>\n
The injury during Sunday\u2019s loss at Dallas came on a broken play at the end of the first half. Daniels took a snap under center, and left guard Chris Paul stepped on the quarterback\u2019s foot as he backed away from the line of scrimmage.<\/p>\n
Daniels used his non-throwing arm to brace his fall and perhaps keep the play going, but in doing so he injured the elbow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe freak ones like this, it\u2019s hard to explain,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cI loved everything about the first half, how he was playing, what we did. \u2026 Total surprise to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A similar thing happened in November, when Daniels used his left arm to brace himself and dislocated his elbow against the Seattle Seahawks. He returned from that injury a little more than a month later, only to aggravate the problem and miss the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
Quinn said Monday there was no discussion of Daniels undergoing surgery when he first sustained the injury last year or of him wearing a protective brace.<\/p>\n
\u201cHindsight is awesome,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cI wish we had it on all things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Commanders now turn to the veteran Mariota, who is set to start Sunday\u2019s home opener against the Seahawks. Quinn said he and general manager Adam Peters have not discussed adding another veteran to the quarterback room. Rookie seventh-round pick Athan Kaliakmanis has served as the emergency third quarterback in Washington\u2019s first two games.<\/p>\n
Mariota made eight starts for the Commanders in 2025 with Daniels sidelined, going 2-6. The veteran completed 11 of 16 passes for 111 yards and a touchdown during Sunday\u2019s 37-20 loss to the Cowboys.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nobody easier to rally around than (Mariota),\u201d Quinn said. \u201cWhen you ask anybody on our team who some of our greatest leaders are, whether it\u2019s on or off the field, Marcus is somebody that constantly comes up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quinn later said he doesn\u2019t anticipate new offensive coordinator David Blough needing to change his system much with Mariota taking over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing is: What do you want to feature with Marcus that you didn\u2019t with Jayden?\u201d Quinn said. \u201cIt won\u2019t be exactly the same, but fortunately there will be a lot of similarities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ASHBURN, Va. \u2014 Marcus Mariota will start at quarterback for the Washington Commanders on Sunday after Jayden Daniels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,153880,8773,10391,153883,46196,15450,153879,7683,153882,153881],"class_list":["post-446140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-commanders-seahawks","tag-dan-quinn","tag-jayden-daniels","tag-jayden-daniels-elbow","tag-jayden-daniels-injury","tag-marcus-mariota","tag-nfl-week-3","tag-washington-commanders","tag-when-will-jayden-daniels-return","tag-will-jayden-daniels-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}