The Eagles headed into another game with the Commanders this week. Despite their recent loss to the lowly Giants, the Commanders always play the Eagles touch and this game was no different.
It started with Sean Desai’s defense. After a week of praise, the unit that added Kevin Byard was an absolute embarrassment. They covered essentially nobody and allowed so many open receivers that Howell went 24/26 passing in the first half with both James Bradberry and Darius Slay putting on the most embarrassing display of missed tackles Eagles fans have seen in years.
The defensive line got a handful of pressures but never made it home. It resulted in the Commanders putting up 17 points for the halftime lead. That was the first time in three or four weeks that all of those points were on the defense and not due to some offensive turnovers.
Speaking of turnovers, D’Andre Swift only got three touches in the very beginning of the game and then the staff went heavy to Kenneth Gainwell with six touches and his being in almost every play. It got the Eagles exactly where you’d expect as Swift had -4 rushing yards with his touches AND fumbled the ball away at the three-yard line.
After Gainwell ruined that other drive, Jalen Hurts and co authored a strong drive with no timeouts (excluding Sua Opeta’s injury) in a bit over a minute. It culminated in an incredible catch from AJ Brown for a touchdown which kept the game close despite no run game and little to no defense being played.
The Eagles came out from the half with a very successful 74-yard drive but threw all that away when a bad snap fumbled the ball away on the tush push.
The two teams traded a couple blows, but it was an interception by Reed Blankenship off a deflection that gave the Eagles an upper hand and the first touchdown for Julio Jones in an Eagles uniform gave them their first lead of the match.
Two drops for incompletions by the Commanders lead to a turnover on downs and presented Philadelphia with a golden opportunity. They failed to take advantage, however, using only a minute of clock on the worst three-and-out of the game.
The Commanders sure seem like they were shafted by a call that appeared to be called a catch then was seemingly changed to an incompletion call on the field. The ensuing challenge saw the Commander lose a timeout and face a fourth and five that they were unable to convert.
Already in the red zone, a few handoffs to D’Andre Swift lead to a 14-point lead with under two minutes left and the Commanders out of timeouts. Washington answered back with another touchdown, but any chance at a comeback would require a successful recovery on an onside kick. They couldn’t complete this as DeVonta Smith pulled the kick down to seal the victory.
Brown was again dominant in this match with two impressive touchdown grabs, one that should absolutely be on the Sports Center Top 10. In fact, it may wind up being one of the 10 best catches of this entire season across the NFL – it was that good. He wound up with 129 yards and two touchdowns this week. With this game, he set an NFL record with his sixth straight game of 125+ yards receiving.
The defense was pretty much not good as a whole. You can’t allow over 35 completions without recording a single sack. With that said, Blankenship himself really didn’t have a great game and had busted coverage of his own. He did what was needed, however, with the only turnover the defense was able to manage setting up the offense to take control of the game and provide the team with a better opportunity to end the game with the ball in their hands or go up by two scores. He recorded seven tackles in the contest.
Eagles
10
