Jayden Daniels went down, but the Washington Commanders still hit on all cylinders with Marcus Mariota.

The Washington Commanders suffered a big blow early against the Carolina Panthers in Week 7 when Jayden Daniels left the game with a rib injury.

However, the Commanders still managed to score 30 of their 40 points with backup Marcus Mariota under center in the win.

Even though the Commanders made the switch at quarterback, coach Dan Quinn wasn’t surprised by the team’s continued success.

“I think it shows there’s a lot of confidence in the plan, of what we would do and how to feature the players of doing the things that they do best,” Quinn said of the team’s offensive performance. “And so, I wasn’t surprised to see Marcus perform well. We’ve all seen it. What I thought was really strong was this is a guy that missed a month of being on IR at the start. And so, for him to battle back from an injury and get back into the reps, that took work to do that. And so, he got some playing time early in one of the games. Can’t remember which one right now, but that was important to get going. And then this one, to get in for the, almost the whole game, I think Jayden left after the first drive, so that was a big deal.”

With a full week of practice ahead, Mariota will get more first-team reps, and that will help the Commanders better prepare for their matchup this week against the Chicago Bears.

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