Commanders' Consistency Turned Hype Into Reality for Safety Jeremy Reaves

Jeremy Reaves has been through plenty with the Washington Commanders, and this season became real when the team showed consistency it had never had before.

Nov 24, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders safety Jeremy Reaves (39) participates in warmup prior to the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Northwest Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

ASHBURN, Va. -- Washington Commanders safety Jeremy Reaves has been through a lot in his time with the franchise.

Forget name changes, coaching changes, and even ownership changes. The biggest hurdle for Reaves to clear was getting back from his ACL injury in 2023 and doing it at a level that showed the new Commanders' regime just how valuable he is to this team.

Through all of it, however, Washington fans have been in his corner. And it's something he always recognizes, but did so in written form recently in an amazing piece for The Players' Tribune that every fan should take time to read.

Nov 24, 2024; Landover, Maryland, USA; Washington Commanders safety Jeremy Reaves (39) participates in warmup prior to the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Northwest Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

If there's one place Reaves and his fans weren't on the same page, however, it's how quickly each bought into the hype surrounding the Commanders this season.

While many got the playoff talk going as early as Week 9, with Washington 7-2 having already exceeded preseason win total projections, Reaves needed more proof.

"When we started being consistent with it," Reaves says, is when things got real for him. "I think it's easy to fall into the hype when things are going good in the moment, but we've had moments where things weren't going as well, and we still find ways to win. I think that's when it becomes real for everybody in the building. When we started that run there, when we start winning three, four, it's like, 'Okay, yeah, we got something different here. We have to maximize this.'"

It isn't that Reaves didn't have faith in his teammates. Going back further in the season to when the Commanders beat the Chicago Bears on a Hail Mary pass from quarterback Jayden Daniels that found receiver Noah Brown in the end zone all by himself, Reaves acknowledged there were things about this team that were different.

The fact that the game came against the same opponent, nearly a year later than the day that he tore his ACL the year prior, made it seem like fate.

If it was fate, fate's name is Dan Quinn. Managing partner Josh Harris got the ball rolling on recalibrating Washington football. General manager Adam Peters is the architect. But coach Quinn, he's the gas that makes the whole thing go.

"Lead sled dog, man," Reaves says when describing Quinn. "He is what he preaches. It's different when people say things, and then it's different when people do things. He does both. He is who he says he is. We've heard (receiver Terry McLaurin) say that all the time: 'Be who you say you are.' He is that guy and he's a guy that's all about winning. He's all about trying to find different ways to win, whether that's player input, whether that's other staff input, his ego's not too big for winning, and so the difference is just when he has his mind set to things he's set, he challenges us to get our brotherhood as strong as we could, as fast as we could in the beginning, and that's what we did. And that translated to all the wins that we had because that was the key thing, and it was not really Xs and Os; it's about us."

That's the same mentality the Commanders have heading into this weekend as well. One step from the Super Bowl, this game isn't about the NFC Championship, or about history, or anything else. It's about the players and coaches coming together and putting their best 60 minutes on the field.

Do that, Reaves says, and the rest will take care of itself.

"I think as an ultimate competitor, that's what you have to think. That it doesn't matter who you're playing against. I mean, heck, I'm sitting up here - I was a two-star recruit. I went to South Alabama. But I turned myself into something different," says Reaves. "That's because of how I think about myself. And so when you have a team that thinks that way, that's kind of the result that you get is just a bunch of guys that are going to compete their asses off no matter what the situation is."

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