Commanders

Commanders QB Jayden Daniels has had a difficult time with injuries this season and will miss the rest of the year after suffering a dislocated elbow. Daniels admits he’s been frustrated with how things have gone. 

“It’s super tough,” Daniels said, via WUSA. “I don’t want to miss games at all. I’ve been frustrated this whole season, missing games. I want to be out there to help my teammates as much as possible. It’s just been a frustrating year, a disappointing year, but you learn from it and move forward.”

• Daniels on getting shut down for the season: “It was obviously disappointing. I’m a competitor. I want to play.” (Jhabvala)
• Commanders FB Nick Bellore was fined $10,847 for unnecessary roughness.

Cowboys

The Cowboys’ recent loss to the Vikings brought their record to 6-7-1 with just three games left in the season. Dallas owner Jerry Jones said it’s “very important” for them to win Week 16 against the Chargers.

“A win is very, very important in the NFL. And a win is important to me. And a win does a lot of positive things. I don’t care when it happens,” Jones said, via Todd Archer of ESPN. “We owe it to that mirror, and we owe it certainly to our fans that we want to walk out there and be competitive. We will not try for draft position. We won’t be looking at anything like that. We’ll be out there playing football, and we’ll bring them to play. So that’s a long-winded way of saying we’ll play football under whatever the circumstances are.”

Jones is still optimistic about the future, saying they have some “cornerstone” type of players. 

“I love the bones of our team. I love the fundamentals of our team right now,” Jones said. “We’ve got some outstanding players and we’re in good shape with how we’ve structured our salary cap, and I really like the idea that we’ve got some extra picks. I like what we’ve done throughout this year in putting some cornerstones in place that will help us as we go forward. So when I look at our future, our future looks very bright. And again, I think we’ve got key players at key positions. We’ve got some great draft picks ahead of us and we’ve got some salary cap room to pay it. That’s the reason we’ve made some of the decisions we’ve made.”

Cowboys

The Cowboys fell to the Vikings in Week 15, losing 34-26 at home on Sunday Night Football. Cowboys HC Brian Schottenheimer expressed his disappointment and took accountability for being outcoached by Minnesota DC Brian Flores. 

“I’m disappointed,” Schottenheimer said, via Jon Machota of The Athletic. “We didn’t play well against Detroit (the week before). I really do think this. I think we’re beating ourselves quite a bit, and that starts with us as a coaching staff. … It’s always going to start with me and the things that I messed up and didn’t do very well. (Vikings defensive coordinator) Brian Flores was better than me (Sunday). I won’t sleep very well tonight. But I promise you I will wake up tomorrow and I’m going to work my ass off and I’m gonna figure it out.”

With the Cowboys’ playoff chances looking slim, Schottenheimer said they are always all in on winning.

“All about winning. It’s always going to be all about winning, whether we’re sitting at undefeated or wherever we are today, it’s always going to be about winning because our mantra and central theme of the program is compete every day. Kinda talked to the guys about that a little bit today. We’re not going to blink. We’re not going to change who we are. We understand where we sit, but we got a really good opportunity to play a really good football team this week in the Chargers.”