Side-by-Side Video of Jayden Daniels and Robert Griffin III Getting Hurt Is Eerie

Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels suffered a gruesome left elbow injury during Sunday night's loss to the Seahawks.
Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels suffered a gruesome left elbow injury during Sunday night's loss to the Seahawks. / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

The Commanders held their breath Sunday night when Jayden Daniels went down due to a gruesome elbow injury that all but spells the end of his second NFL season. Daniels got hurt during the meaningless, garbage time minutes of Week 9's blowout loss to the Seahawks, causing fans and pundits alike to ask why Daniels was still playing in the game.

Former Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III was among those weighing in on Daniels's injury, having been in a similar situation many years ago. Griffin saw his once-promising career in Washington get derailed by injuries, the most serious of which was an ACL tear in his right knee during a 2013 wild card playoff game in his rookie season.

A side-by-side video of Griffin's and Daniels's respective season-ending injuries show how eerily similar they were—not the injury itself, of course, but the conditions in which they occurred.

Both players got hurt against the Seahawks, in Washington's stadium and around the 5-yard-line:

Though Daniels's mom recently shot down comparisons between her son's and Griffin's NFL careers, there are admittedly some parallels between the two given Daniels's injury-riddled second year in the pros.

Griffin sent prayers and well wishes to Daniels after his elbow injury and also posted a two-minute-long video on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption, "WHY WAS JAYDEN DANIELS EVEN STILL IN THE GAME?!?!?!"

"My first thought is, why is he still in the game?" Griffin said. "I understand you want to play to the end, but with the injuries that he's already had this year, and the injuries that he had last year, why is he in the game? It doesn't make sense."

It should be noted that there is one big difference between Daniels's and Griffin's injuries: whereas Daniels was fully healthy entering the game, Griffin had suffered a LCL strain in his right knee the month prior to his injury. The former Washington quarterback later conceded that he probably "did put myself at more risk by being out there."

Following Week 9's loss, the Commanders fell to 3-6 on the season and now have an outside shot in the NFC playoff race with their star quarterback out for the foreseeable future.


More NFL on Sports Illustrated

SI BTN Newsletter. Start off your day with SI:CYMI. dark. FREE NEWSLETTER

feed


Published
Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.