Commanders 

Commanders CB Mike Sainristil had a tough time in Week 1’s loss to the Eagles, allowing a nine-yard touchdown and a 64-yard reception. Washington HC Dan Quinn said that Sainristil wasn’t set on the conceded touchdown. 

“The touchdown play definitely felt like, as the motion got over, man, like, you have to go get set,” Quinn said, via CommandersWire. “And those are things that we have to get corrected. We’ve definitely identified a few things that, ‘Hey, man, these are the things that we have to get corrected.’ Mike’s a very good competitor. I’m certain that we will, but to have that type of play and just not have the right focus at the right time, completely not acceptable.”

As for the 64-yard catch, Quinn thinks the cornerback lost track of the ball and feels they need to improve their communication on the field. 

“On the second play, the deep pass play, I think you’re referring to kinda the same thing as you lost track of the ball, like, ‘Finish it out, man.’ And so, I think that’s the lesson in the game. It wasn’t schematically related to him or something like that. Communication error or some normal things that go into a big play to go. So, that’s definitely the things we’ve identified with him, and I’m certain that he’ll work on that. We definitely need to.”

• Quinn said it is “too early” to tell if CB Trey Amos (ankle) will be immediately available once eligible to be activated from injured reserve, per Ben Standig. 

Cowboys

Cowboys HC Brian Schottenheimer had to address the team’s shortcomings after their Week 1 loss to the Giants and said he and DC Christian Parker are aligned on making defensive improvements before their next matchup.

“It’s part of the learning curve,” Schottenheimer said Monday, via Jon Machota of The Athletic. “We have to get better, but we’re going to make mistakes. I see this defense every day and we did not perform well enough as a football team last night, coaching and playing. It’s certainly not the standard. But I’m also not ready to say the expectations for where we think we’re going to get to as a defense and as a football team are not accurate…There was plenty of padded work. We just did not perform to the level that we should perform to (Sunday) night, and we own that. I’m always going to be the first one off the bus taking responsibility and accountability for that. We’ll get back to work. We got the right guys in this locker room to fix it.”

“He’s been great,” Schottenheimer added on Parker. “Very methodical, as you would imagine, just like what we’ve seen with every experience and exposure to him. Very methodical, very convicted. Didn’t make excuses. ‘Need to be better. Will be better, starting with X, Y, Z.’ He and I were on the same page with that, which is a good thing. And then this morning he was amazing with the staff and having hard conversations and real conversations. And this is not just the players; this is us as a staff. That’s a leader. That’s a leader of men.”

“I’m around him every day,” Schottenheimer concluded. “There’s adversity all the time in what we do. You (reporters) don’t hear about all of it. You don’t see all of it. You don’t deal with all of it. But whether it’s the things we deal with off the field, whether it’s the things we deal with in coaching meetings and discussions that we have from a strategy standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, and until you go through all those things, you don’t really know. But I have no question Christian Parker is the right guy for this job. He’s an outstanding coach. He will learn from this, just like our young players are going to learn from this. We’re going to play our young players this weekend, too. They’re going to play better and Christian’s going to call a better game this week and feel better about it.”

Eagles

Eagles DT Moro Ojomo enters the fourth year of his career after being a seventh-round pick back in 2023. Ojomo said that his mindset is to become “the best defensive tackle” in the NFL. 

“I’m always trying to be the best,” Ojomo said, via Zach Berman of The Athletic. “We have an extremely loaded room. Those guys know I’m not backing down from anything. The goal is always to be the best defensive tackle, and that’s the mindset. I want to make more plays, I want to have more sacks, I want to make more TFLs, I want to be the best in the room and the best in the league.”

Ojomo had a big stop on a two-point conversion against the Commanders in their Week 1 win. Eagles DC Vic Fangio praised the defensive tackle for the tenacity he showed on the play. 

“I think part of it is due to his effort,” Fangio said. “His dogged effort plays a part in that, which he’s a little undersized as D-tackles go, and he needs to have all that stuff working for him. But he does have good instincts, but he gives great effort and he’s tenacious. They hadn’t shown that (play). Obviously, that was a special play they had cooked up for a 2-point play, and it was more of his reaction and instincts after the ball was snapped than anything pre-snap.”

Eagles QB Jalen Hurts said Ojomo’s effort is his best quality, calling it a “priceless” skill. 

“His effort — I know that may seem like a simple thing, but that’s a valuable trait that not every player masters, because it is a skill,” Hurtt said. “Playing hard is a skill. … Not everybody does it. If you’re in the real world at a Fortune 500 company, the people who get retained and that you want to make sure you have as long as you possibly can are the people who grind and know how to work. … You can harp on it all you want to, but when you find somebody who innately has it within them, that’s a skill that, to me, is priceless.”

• Eagles HC Nick Sirianni explained why they named QB Andy Dalton their primary backup over Tanner McKee: “That’s who won the job in camp.” (Jeff McLane)