Jayden Daniels’s Hail Mary Is the Most Significant NFL Play of 2024

The Commanders’ game-winning play against the Bears did more than just seal a Washington victory, it set off a chain of events that shaped the league.

Daniels's Hail Mary secured a Commanders' win over the Bears, and set off a significant chain of events. / Greg Fiume/Getty Images

As the afternoon window of an October Sunday came to a close, Jayden Daniels backed up to his own 40-yard line, drifting with the kind of nonchalance one might find in a Turkey Bowl game between aging relatives wearing khaki pants and HOKA orthotics. The Washington Commanders were trailing by three points, there was one second remaining and the only path to victory was a touchdown with a probability rating of 3.1% as measured by Next Gen Stats. 

“So,” CBS announcer Jim Nantz began the call, perhaps the only one aware that something spectacular was about to happen, “here we go.”

Daniels, to this point, was the most exciting player in the NFL, having begun the season on a torrid stretch that put him not only on Rookie of the Year pace, but possible Most Valuable Player honors thanks to his role in reviving a Commanders franchise that had been worse than irrelevant. A culture of toxicity created by former owner Daniel Snyder, alongside a crumbling stadium and a directionless football team, had rendered the once-proud football city a kind of annex separate from the NFL, roped off as if it had been part of some radioactive spill.

JAYDEN DANIELS WITH A HAIL MARY TO BEAT THE BEARS AS TIME EXPIRES 🤯

WHAT HAVE WE JUST WITNESSED?!?!?!

(via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/xuSQsWlODR

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 27, 2024

And so, that was very much in the air as Daniels’s pass cut through the night sky and toward a pack of Commanders and Chicago Bears players. Also part of this invisible narrative atmosphere? The only player to have been selected before Daniels in the 2024 NFL draft, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, standing on the other sideline. Near Williams, then Bears head coach, Matt Eberflus, winner of three straight games, finally tasting a bit of respite after two years in the teeth of Chicago’s infamous media blender. Near Eberflus, then Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who took a high-pressure job coaching the No. 1 pick in the draft, a disposition that typically comes with either a rapid ascent through the NFL coaching ranks or a descent should the player not be performing up to expectations. 

Daniels has led the Commanders to a 9–5 start. / Greg Fiume/Getty Images

At the moment, we also did not notice Tyrique Stevenson, the Bears’ second-round pick cornerback from the year before. Up until that point, he had been neatly folded into the tidy tale of the woebegone Bears starting to turn it around. He was on defense, trying to stop the Hail Mary from becoming a game-winning touchdown. 

As the ball landed inside a throng of players, bounced into the air and fell into the arms of a wide-open Noah Brown, the delirious crowd erupted in a cacophony of cheers. Strangers were embracing one another. But the reason it was the best sports moment I saw in 2024 was because of how consequential it all turned out to be. 

Fan-recorded video caught Stevenson flexing and carrying on with his back turned to the play. A few days later he’d be benched for the opening drives of the following week’s game. He walked off the practice field after being confronted with the news. Waldron would be fired after a handful of uninspiring performances to come. Eberflus, who had recovered some of that defensive guru gravitas, would give up another stunning last-second touchdown (before halftime) the following week against the Arizona Cardinals and then bungle the final drive in a Thanksgiving contest against the Detroit Lions, costing him his job.

And, for once, the Commanders’ fans felt like there was some benevolent spirit that did not occupy its free time punishing their favorite football team. All in one play that lasted roughly 20 seconds, life and death, hope and utter horror, love and cynicism. Aren’t sports great? 

More NFL on Sports Illustrated

feed