No one outside the locker room was surprised when the Commanders lost to the Buccaneers 37-20 in the season opener. The Commanders, after all, were coming off a 4-13 season with a new coach and a rookie quarterback.

“I was like, ‘Hey, F you. That’s not how it’s going to go down,’” coach Dan Quinn said, via John Keim of ESPN. “It wasn’t disrespect; it was dismissiveness, and I felt some kind of way. . . . It was we’re going to be a lot better than what we just showed today, and eventually we’ll show that. So, not to prove it to everybody else or underdog stories, it’s how we get down.”

The Commanders surprised plenty of people with wins over the Bucs and the Lions in the postseason to reach the NFC Championship Game in Quinn and Jayden Daniels’ first season in Washington.

The Commanders remain underdogs, a role they are just fine playing.

“At some point I’m sure people will start believing in us,” Washington safety Jeremy Chinn said, “and we’ll have that same chip on our shoulder. It is the way that we come into work every single day. The guys in this building, the people in this building, the way we show up to work, people can say whatever they want outside. We know who we have in here and who we are.”