Over the past five months, the Washington Commanders have overhauled their front office, hired a new coaching staff, brought in more than two dozen free agents, drafted a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and instilled some hope that maybe, just maybe, the club that finished 4-13 last season and hasn’t won a playoff game in 18 years could have a shot.
The NFL’s schedule-makers did nothing to dampen those vibes.
The Commanders’ 2024 opponents have been known since the end of last season, but the refurbished team got its first glimpse at the exact obstacles ahead when the league announced the schedule Wednesday. The bad news for Washington: Its bye is in Week 14 for the third season in a row and it has just two prime-time games — a Monday night meeting with the Bengals in Cincinnati in Week 3 and a Thursday night game against the Eagles in Philadelphia in Week 11.
But the rest of the slate is palatable, at least compared with recent seasons, when Washington’s schedule has been backloaded with divisional games, featured multiple trips out west or included a gantlet of formidable opposing quarterbacks.
Last season, the Commanders faced a brutal schedule — the eighth toughest, based on opponents’ combined record the previous season — but their 2024 schedule is middle-of-the-pack, tied for the 16th most difficult.
The Commanders will open the season on the road for the first time since 2019 and will face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, pitting two Heisman-winning quarterbacks — Washington rookie Jayden Daniels and the Bucs’ Baker Mayfield, who claimed the award in 2017.
The Commanders return home for Week 2 to take on the NFC East rival New York Giants, then face a tough two-game stretch in which they play the Bengals on the road on “Monday Night Football,” then head west to take on offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury’s former team, the Arizona Cardinals.
But that is Washington’s longest road trip of the season. The Commanders will travel the fewest linear miles of any team in the NFL, which should come as a relief after two West Coast games last season.
After hosting Deshaun Watson and the Cleveland Browns in Week 5, Washington will head up Interstate 95 to face the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium. It will be just the second time Lamar Jackson has faced Washington (he was responsible for three touchdowns in the Ravens’ 31-17 win in 2020) and his first game against a player who idolized him and even drew comparisons ahead of the draft.
“I don’t like to compare myself to anybody, but there are some similarities to what he is doing,” Daniels said of Jackson at the NFL combine in February. “He is playing at a very high level — kudos to him — and he is the GOAT of this running and throwing. I am just trying to follow in his footsteps.”
All teams play each other on a rotating cycle, thanks to an NFL schedule formula that began in 2002. This season, the Commanders will face all four teams in the AFC North and all four teams in the NFC South. They also will play two intraconference games and one interconference game based on their last-place ranking in their division last season.
Arizona is one of those intraconference matchups, while the Tennessee Titans, who hired Brian Callahan as their coach shortly after finishing fourth in the AFC South last season, serve as the interconference game in Week 13.
The other intraconference last-place game is the one to circle. The Commanders host Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears in Week 8, a game that surprisingly will not be in prime time. It will be only the sixth time in the common draft era that rookie quarterbacks selected with the first and second picks could face each other. That game also will be Washington’s first against the Bears since it traded pass rusher (and 2019 first-round draft pick) Montez Sweat to Chicago at last season’s deadline.
Multiple Commanders players cited last season’s blowout loss to the Bears as the turning point in their season. When the teams face each other this time, Chicago’s roster will be significantly upgraded and more equipped to create matchup issues.
Yet Washington might still get another shot at former Bears quarterback Justin Fields, who is now in Pittsburgh. The Commanders host the Steelers in Week 10, then take on Jalen Hurts and the Eagles on only a few days of rest on “Thursday Night Football.”
For the third consecutive season the Commanders will close out against the Cowboys, and this game will have even more significance with the hiring of Coach Dan Quinn, the Cowboys’ former defensive coordinator, and the signings of multiple ex-Cowboys, including defensive end Dorance Armstrong and center Tyler Biadasz. The Commanders have lost their past three games at AT&T Stadium. The rivals’ first meeting will be in Week 12 in Landover.
The Commanders will return from their bye to play at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, home of Super Bowl LIX, for the first time since 2018. Washington has not won a game there since its 2012 opener, when Robert Griffin III threw for 320 yards and two touchdowns in his NFL debut.
Another reunion will take place in Week 17, when Kirk Cousins, now with the Atlanta Falcons, plays at Commanders Field for only the third time since leaving the franchise; he hasn’t lost there as a visitor yet. That game will be the team’s last of nine home games, which means it has two preseason games on the road, against the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins. The dates and times for those games will be announced at a later date. The third and final preseason game will be in Landover against the New England Patriots on Aug. 25.
Despite the newness in Washington and the intrigue that comes with drafting a quarterback such as Daniels, the Commanders will not play internationally this year. The league’s five international matchups — two at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London; another at Wembley Stadium in London; one in Munich; and another, the first, in São Paulo, Brazil — were announced early Wednesday.
But the many changes have the Commanders already lauding a renewed feeling in Ashburn.
“A completely different energy from the second we kind of walked into the first team meeting,” wide receiver Jahan Dotson said this week. “Coach Quinn really emphasized that we’re really a team. We got to come together as soon as possible so we can make things happen when the games roll around in the regular season.”
That starts Sept. 8 in Tampa.
