ASHBURN, VA (WTKR)- It's no secret that Sunday brings the biggest stage the Commanders have seen in quite some time, but they're trying to keep things business as usual.
"You know the magnitude of this game," said wide receiver Jamison Crowder. "Obviously it's the NFC Championship game, but at the end of the day, you've still got to prepare and go out there and take it one play at a time. Don't go out there and put a lot of pressure on yourself, just go out there and play the game."
"There's going to be a lot more eyes on these teams," quarterback Jayden Daniels added. "You could get out of whack, you could listen to the media and stuff like that, but if you keep your same routine, stay consistent, it'll be worked out."
Standing between Washington and its first Super Bowl since the 1991 season are the rival Philadelphia Eagles. The two squads will face off for a third time, after splitting their regular season match-ups. Philadelphia took the first game in November, 26-18, while the Commanders got some revenge last month, when Daniels connected with Crowder for the winning score with six seconds left in a 36-33 Washington victory. Sunday's game will be a unique contest and Dan Quinn is choosing to approach it like a first time opponent, rather than a familiar foe.
"What are fresh eyes on the games? What are fresh eyes on the time from when we played?," he noted. "The easy narrative would be they know us, we know them, but it's different than that to me. This is our first time playing them in the postseason."
"I've never played a team three times in a [season] and I've been here a long time," defensive back Jeremy Reeves added. "It's cool, though, and especially in the division, we know each other very well. They know us, we know them, we know what kind of games those always are so it will be exciting."
Once again, Washington will be underdogs and on the road, a situation in which the group has performed well so far in the playoffs Road teams are 2-8 this postseason, with the Commanders accounting for both wins. Now they'll look to silence a hostile Philadelphia crowd.
"It's an edge to walk into a building and nobody believes in you but the guys on the sidelines," said defensive tackle Jalyn Holmes, a Lake Taylor grad. "We want to do our job and play as hard as we can and try to get that dub and make that crowd pretty silent."
Now the burgundy and gold look to add one more chapter to what many thought to be an unlikely success story. A franchise that was just 4-13 one year ago is now just one victory away from the biggest stage in sports.
"Nobody really thought we'd be here, but everybody in this building thought we would be," Reeves pointed out. "It's just kind of the fruits of our labor. We put the work in, nobody really saw and we're here now."
"It's not a prove it to everybody else or underdog story," added Quinn. "It's how we get down. This is not a seven-game series and so we've got to play our best on Sunday at 3:00."
That's when the NFC Championship game kicks off in Philadelphia. News 3 will be in the City of Brotherly Love with the Commanders and have reports on-air and online.
