Offense Starts Slow but Defense Dominates as Eagles Take Down the Commanders on Thursday Night Football

Remember when the Eagles were 2-2 and everything sucked? Me neither.

The Philadelphia Eagles overcame another slow first half and a poor kicking performance to take down the division rival Washington Commanders 26-18 on Thursday night at the Linc. They have now won six straight games and are firmly in control of the NFC East at 8-2.

The Eagles once again got off to an agonizingly slow start. After starting with the ball, it looked like the offense wouldn’t be skipping a beat from Sunday’s game against Dallas, driving down the field with authority. However, a Mekhi Becton holding call would lead to a 44-yard field goal attempt which Jake Elliott would pull too far left for a miss.

Both defenses would dominate the entire first half, forcing seven total punts and only giving up one scoring opportunity each. For the Commanders, this would come in the form of a one-yard touchdown run from Brian Robinson on a five-play drive that was highlighted by a 34-yard pass from Jayden Daniels to Austin Ekeler.

The Eagles’ only score of the half would come from an Elliott 21-yard chip shot with just under 20 seconds remaining in the quarter, ending the half with a score of 7-3. This field goal would unfortunately come after a second straight miss from Elliott earlier on in the second quarter, where he again pulled a 51-yarder to the left.

During that drive that ended in a field goal, Jalen Hurts was flattened by a Washington defender and had to be evaluated in the blue tent for a concussion. Once the half ended, Hurts ran through the tunnel looking fine and returned to play for the start of the third without any noticeable issues after he was evaluated for a concussion and cleared to return. Prior to his return though, the Commanders started the half with the ball and were able to drive down the field and make a 45-yard field goal, thanks in large part to a highly questionable Cooper DeJean pass interference call.

The Eagles would respond with a field goal drive of their own, putting the score at 10-6. The game could have been tied as Philly was able to get the ball into the rezone, but a third-down touchdown shot from Hurts went over the head of A.J. Brown. Hurts and Brown seemed uncharacteristically out of sync for certain points in the early parts of this game, with Hurts missing a first-down pass to a wide-open Brown after he dropped his defender to the ground. Despite this Brown still finished with five catches on eight targets for 65 yards as the team’s leading receiver.

After the defense was able to stop the Commanders again, the Eagles were finally able to drive the ball all the way down the field for a touchdown, thanks to the brotherly shove. A major piece of this drive was Kenneth Gainwell, who gained 34 yards on three consecutive carries. Unfortunately, Elliott picked a bad time to have the worst game of his career, again pulling the kick to the left and missing the extra point, putting the score at 12-10.

It looked like Washington was storming down the field, but this defense came up huge again, turning a second and inches on their own 25-yard line into a turnover on downs. It was at this exact moment that this game turned from a dangerously close contest into an absolute laugher. The Eagles took the ball and added seven on a 23-yard touchdown run from Saquon Barkley. Three plays later the Eagles would tack on seven more after Reed Blankenship turned Washington’s first snap after the touchdown into an interception for his third of the year. Two plays later and Saquon would be back in the endzone following a 39-yard beauty of a run. This would officially put the game out of reach with a score of 26-10.

Zach Ertz would score a garbage time touchdown and two-point conversion that more than anything felt like a nice tip of the cap to the Eagles legend. This would bring the score to a one-possession game at 26-18, but the Eagles easily recovered the onside kick to officially put the game out of reach.

It cannot be overstated just how good this Eagles defense has been over the last six-game stretch. In 10 games the Commanders were averaging just under 30 points a game, the Eagles held them to under 20. Before this game, Daniels threw just two interceptions, but another one was added this game courtesy of Blankenship. The usually very illusive Daniels was also held to just 18 rushing yards on seven attempts and was sacked three times. This is one of the best defenses in the entire NFL and Vic Fangio should be lauded for the job he has done.

This is clearly a second-half team. They have come out of several games looking very flat but always seem to turn it around in the second half. Whatever adjustments they make in the locker room at halftime clearly work, but if this team is able to get off to hot starts and maintain that dominance I don’t know who will be able to stop them. The Eagles came into the fourth quarter of this game with just six points but ended the game with 26. This team just wears its opponents down as the game goes on, so the sooner they can do that moving forward, the better.

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