The Cardiac Commanders have done it again.
Sometimes all it takes is the bounce of the football, or in the Washington Commanders‘ case, the doink of the football.
The Commanders walked-off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 23-20 with a 37-yard field goal by kicker Zane Gonzalez, who doinked it in.
Gonzalez lined up for the game-winning kick, and seemed to have hooked it, before it doinked off the right upright and inexplicably went in.
When a football doinks the upright, rarely does it bounce in.
Fortunately for the Commanders. it was their night.
And just like that, Washington’s 19-year postseason drought went up in smoke.
Jayden Daniels has his first playoff win as a rookie.
The star quarterback finished 24-35 for 268 yards and two touchdowns, with 36 yards on the ground, including rushing for the game’s last first down, that helped setup the game-winning kick.
Daniels looked anything but a rookie in his first postseason start, and the Commanders are now on to the divisional round.
The ‘Cardiac Commanders’ moniker doesn’t even begin to describe the season they’ve had.
It is the seventh time this year that Washington has won on the final snap.
It’s been a magical season in the DMV.
It has been the year of burgundy and gold in Landover, Maryland and on Sunday night, it spread throughout Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
Ironically enough, in a full-circle moment for the franchise, their last postseason victory came in that stadium back in January of 2006.
And it is now the sight of where they ended their streak.
It is a dawn of a new era of football in Washington.
An era that has Daniels and a wave of burgundy and gold running rampant across the league.