Inside the Commanders' 'Tell the Truth' meeting after their brutal loss

The loss on Friday night marks a significant shift for the Washington Commanders from a team that competed to the echo of every whistle in 2024 to one that appeared defeated long before Friday night's preseason game against the New England Patriots was over.

Not About Blame, About Solutions

From that loss, however, comes a very comfortable norm, as Commanders head coach Dan Quinn introduced some new members of the team to “Tell the Truth Monday,” even if it did come on a Sunday.

The process focuses on identifying what went right, what went wrong, what to sustain, and what to improve upon for every player on the roster in Washington.

Sometimes the notes will be good, sometimes they’ll be bad, and most of the time it’s a mixed bag of ups and downs that a player needs to feed off of and grow from to get the most out of their own athletic abilities.

“These are the things that we saw in the game, these are the things we want to identify, it helps,” Quinn says about the exercise.

Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn. | Eric Canha-Imagn Images

'What's the Action Behind It?'

It works because it isn’t about placing blame, but being constructive and focusing on solutions rather than pointing fingers at offenders who may not have been in the right place or made the right decision.

“It's a time not to place blame, but to show the examples of what went right, what didn't, what needs addressing, how do we work on that,” says Quinn, emphasizing the need to move forward and not sit stuck in the mud coming off a win or a loss alike.

Of course, to do so, there has to be a plan. It isn’t enough to say ‘player did good,’ or bad for that matter, if no repeated or improved action is born from it.

“What's the action you're going to put behind it? To say, if this happened... acknowledging it's one thing, but then now here's the individual plan to say this can't repeat the mistake,” as Quinn puts it. Putting action behind evaluation as a way of repeating success and creating new wins from old losses.

Telling the truth sounds simple, but unfortunately, it can become convoluted when egos are introduced. By structuring it in a way that is easily understandable, digestible, and repeatable, it gives coaches a strong platform to deliver instruction from and players a solid environment to receive information.

Turning a Loss Into a Win

Paired with the true belief that the Commanders’ coaching staff truly wants its players to succeed, the exercise can effectively take bad play(s), turn them into production, and get players focused on the next most important task at hand, the Cincinnati Bengals and preseason Week 2.

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