Commanders DT Daron Payne ejected after punching Amon-Ra St. Brown in the helmet in blowout loss to Lions
- - Commanders DT Daron Payne ejected after punching Amon-Ra St. Brown in the helmet in blowout loss to Lions
Ryan Young November 10, 2025 at 1:27 AM
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Daron Payne was ejected from the Washington Commanders' blowout 44-22 loss to the Detroit Lions early on Sunday afternoon after he punched Amon-Ra St. Brown suddenly in the facemask.
After Jahmyr Gibbs ran in a 13-yard score in the second quarter at Northwest Stadium, Payne turned and threw a right hook at St. Brown and connected square in the helmet. It’s unclear what led to that incident or what was said between the two players ahead of time.
Footage of the Daron Payne incident.Yeahhhh you can't do that. That was stupid, especially from a veteran.The frustration of these players is boiling over. #RaiseHail pic.twitter.com/wzT0m6VVfK
— Chad Ryan (@ChadwikoTWW) November 9, 2025
It didn’t escalate much after that, but officials quickly hit the Commanders' defensive tackle with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and ejected him. The penalty moved the Lions up closer after the touchdown, too, and set up an easy two-point conversion run from David Montgomery. That put the Lions up 22-3 at the time.
Payne, in his eighth season in the league, is among the highest-paid players on the team. He signed a four-year, $90 million extension with the franchise ahead of the 2023 season. The 28-year-old, whom the Commanders took with the No. 13 overall pick out of Alabama in 2018, entered Sunday with 30 total tackles and one sack so far this season. He did not have a tackle before he was ejected on Sunday.
While punching an opposing player is never a good idea, especially when they are wearing a helmet, it’s not hard to understand why Payne may have been frustrated. The Lions had built up a quick 14-3 lead before Gibbs’ score midway through the second quarter, and then rolled to the 22-win without any issue in the second half. They scored on their first eight drives, too, and handed the Commanders a fifth-straight loss.
Washington is without quarterback Jayden Daniels, too, after he went down with a gruesome elbow injury in garbage time of last week’s blowout loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Marcus Mariota wasn't awful replacing him on Sunday — he went 16-of-22 for 213 yards with two touchdowns — in the loss. But still, as Payne's ejection showed, clearly things aren't going well inside the Commanders' locker room. It’s been a rapid downfall for the team that went 12-5 last year and made the playoffs for the first time since 2020.
Source: “AOL Sports”
