Washington Commanders: Grading every rookie's preseason Week 1 performance

Bryan Manning, Commanders Wire August 10, 2025 at 11:02 AM UTC· 3 min readThe Washington Commanders lost their preseason opener against the New England Patriots in ugly fashion. New England defeated Washington 48-18 in a game that was never close.

What do we make of this? Head coach Dan Quinn was upset afterward, saying his team didn't live up to the standard set. He wasn't about to make the excuse that Washington was without 30 players. The Commanders chose to sit their starters after they received plenty of work in Wednesday's joint practice with the Patriots.

What upset Quinn the most was the penalties. The Commanders were penalized 13 times for 98 yards. You're going to lose almost every…