It was a moment forever cemented in Washington Commanders’ franchise history: Zane Gonzalez’s 37-yard field goal off the upright to send his team into the divisional round of the NFL playoffs on Sunday night.
In the Commanders’ 23-20 wild-card win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Gonzalez helped complete a thrilling upset spearheaded by star rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels and clinched Washington’s first playoff win since Jan. 7, 2006.
The game was nerve-wrackingly close until the very end, when the Commanders took possession of the ball with roughly five minutes left and a tie score. Commanders coach Dan Quinn shared his extremely anxious reaction to watching Gonzalez’s clutch doink in the seconds leading up to Washington’s playoff victory:
“I felt like I was in a Bounty commercial where the cup spills and like, ‘nooooo,’” Washington coach Dan Quinn said in his postgame presser. “As it went through, I just paused and probably skipped a beat, but that’s the emotion where it was at.”
Funny choice of a simile there, but you can’t knock Quinn’s coaching methods.
In his first season as head coach in Washington, Quinn helped the team finish second in the NFC East with a 12-5 record and go on a critical six-game winning streak since Dec. 1, not to mention continue to develop Daniels as the franchise’s quarterback of the future. This past year marked the first time the Commanders have won 12 games or more since the 1991 season.
The Commanders will once again go on the road to face the NFC’s top seed, the Detroit Lions, on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET.
