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ESPN
Commanders aiming to make Super Bowl, long-shot history
Washington is the most popular bet on the board at BetMGM. More bets have been placed on the Commanders to beat the Eagles straight-up than have been placed on any other outcome in either championship game this weekend.
Washington is around a +240 underdog to win the game outright.
Washington kicked off the season as a 150-1 long shot to win the Super Bowl and drifted as long as 250-1 at sportsbooks ahead of Week 3. With a win Sunday, the Commanders would tie the 1999 St. Louis Rams for the longest preseason odds for a Super Bowl participant since the NFL adopted a 16-game schedule in 1978, according to betting archive SportsOddsHistory.com.
The Athletic (paywall)
Why Jonathan Allen is happily risking his health for the Commanders’ unlikely run
On Oct. 15, a day after being told he’d be sidelined the rest of the 2024 season with a torn pectoral muscle, the Washington Commanders’ eighth-year defensive tackle lay in a hospital bed in New York City and tried to process what he’d thought he just heard. Doped up on anesthesia in a post-operative recovery room, Allen had been informed by the surgeon that — in an unforeseen twist — the muscle was only 20 percent torn, which might fast-track his recovery.
He’s still experiencing pronounced pain in his surgically repaired left arm, a sensation exacerbated by opponents who’ve seemingly targeted the afflicted area.
“If I’m being honest, they probably are,” he said. “But if you go out there, you’re liable and responsible for protecting yourself. It’s not their job to protect me, just like it’s not my job to protect them.
“I mean, I’d be lying if I said it was easy. But if it was easy, everybody would do it. Pec or no pec, everybody at this point of the season is beat up and hurt and playing through something. So just being able to fight back and come back in 2 1/2 months and be a part of this special run has been well worth any of the pain or hard choices I had to make.”
“To be honest, I know I said ‘no setbacks,’ but more times than not, my mindset was, ‘If it tears, it tears — I don’t care,’” Allen admitted. “You can’t be halfway in and halfway out. So, everything I did, I was gonna go full throttle. I mean, in football, it’s either full speed or it’s not. So if I tear it, I tear it. We’ll deal with the repercussions later.”
Extending and restructuring the deal might benefit both him and the team, which is Allen’s preference.
“What my agent and I have always said is, when you have two parties who have mutual interest in accomplishing the same goal, something will get done,” Allen said. “I want to be here. I think I’m wanted here. And at the end of the day, something will get done.”
“I’d say, ‘I want to win, but I want to win here.’ If I were to go to a new team and win there, it would be awesome. But it wouldn’t feel the same as it does now. Because growing up here, being a fan of this team and this organization, it was important for me to be here. And winning here means twice as much as winning somewhere else.”
Bullock’s Film Room (subscription)
Playoff Preview: Commanders run defense vs Saquon Barkley
Previewing the threat of Barkley and how the Commanders can try and slow him down.
One of the biggest challenges facing the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday is trying to contain Saquon Barkley. Barkley led the league in rushing with 2005 yards this season. In the two games the Commanders played against the Eagles during the regular season, Barkley totaled 55 carries for 296 yards and four touchdowns at an average of 5.4 yards per carry.
That’s obviously not a great look for the Commanders run defense, but it is worth pointing out that 130 of those yards came on three explosive touchdown runs. In the first game, Barkley had a 23-yard touchdown run and a 39-yard touchdown. In the second game, he had a 68-yard touchdown run. If you take those three plays out of the equation, Barkley had 52 carries for 166 yards at 3.2 yards per carry, which is significantly more manageable for the Commanders run defense.
Now, before any Eagles fans that might be reading this get angry, yes I understand that those runs did happen and you can’t just take them out. That is very much the way Barkley goes about his business. He can be contained for long spells of the game but at any given moment he can hit a home run and rip off a hugely explosive touchdown run. I’m not trying to diminish that ability at all. But from a Commanders run defense perspective, this presents a different type of challenge.
The Commanders have treated run defense as an opportunity to attack. They will frequently use stunts up front, trying to create disruption to the blocking scheme in search for a negative play. Run stunts can largely be hit or miss. They are almost as likely to result in a big hole being left open for the running back as they are to create a tackle for loss, but the Commanders are willing to live with giving up a few 5-10 yard gains to try and hunt for that negative play on first or second down that can set them up with a third and long situation.
That can work quite well against a lot of teams, but against the Eagles and particularly Saquon Barkley, you can’t risk that style because Barkley is explosive enough to score a touchdown from anywhere on the field if you don’t hit the stunt correctly. That means the Commanders have to take a different approach to run defense. They still need to maintain their aggression in terms of how quick they attack the run fit, but they need to play in a much more gap sound manner instead of stunting and looking for a negative play. If they have any mistakes, Barkley will make them pay, as we’ve seen multiple times already this season.
Commanders.com
Three keys to Washington getting to the Super Bowl
Force the ball into Jalen Hurts hands.
Saquon Barkley has been the Eagles’ game-changing weapon all season. Aside from being the ninth player to rush for 2,000 yards, he’s second in the league in runs of at least 10 yards, first in breakaways yards and second in yards after contact. The Eagles know they can rely on him to make an explosive play, and he usually rewards that faith with a run that either flips the field or ends in a touchdown.
Of course, the Commanders will try to stop Barkley, but few teams have figured out that formula this season. So, perhaps their best chance at getting the Eagles off the field is to force the ball into another player’s hands, specifically Jalen Hurts. The quarterback has been noticeably off since returning to action in the playoffs. His completion rate has been fine, but he hasn’t thrown for 150 yards in over a month. He also took seven sacks in the Divisional win over the Los Angeles Rams, including one that resulted in a safety.
Assuming the Commanders can bottle up Barkley, it will be on cornerbacks Marshon Lattimore and Mike Sainristil to win their one-on-one matchups against A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. The two held their own against Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams last week, allowing 32 yards and two catches on six combined targets. A.J. Brown and Smith are a step up in talent, though.
The good news is that Hurts hasn’t thrown the ball deep in a while. That could change against the Commanders, but as long as the Commanders’ secondary keeps Philadelphia’s receivers in front of them, they’ll have opportunities to make life difficult for Hurts.
Washington Post (paywall)
Jayden Daniels is the perfect point guard for the hoops-loving Commanders
The rookie quarterback may have a ‘Mamba mentality,’ and the basketball parallels don’t stop there.
Daniels’s pregame warm-up routine — which he’ll repeat in Philadelphia on Sunday before playing the Eagles with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line — involves shooting and passing an actual basketball.
Daniels picked up the practice from Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud, a friend and childhood rival. “When you’re shooting a basketball … it’s kind of the same thing for the football,” he explained. “To get a little spiral, you got to flick your wrist in different ways. So that’s a different way to warm up my wrist.”
Daniels, who played basketball through eighth grade, credits the court for helping him develop better vision. “Playing quarterback, you got to have wide vision to kind of see different spaces,” he said, and that has helped him in ways easy to overlook, such as last weekend in the upset of the Lions, when he read the defense and consistently got the offense into the right play.
Front Office Sports
The Commanders Brand Is Finally Popular
The stunning upset over the Lions led to the best day of sales in the history of the 92-year-old franchise.
Sunday—a day after the Commanders advanced to the NFC championship game with an upset of the Lions—was the franchise’s best-selling day ever, according to online sales data Fanatics provided to Front Office Sports. That includes the years before the name change.
And since the playoffs got underway, the Commanders have been Fanatics’ best-selling NFL team, with star rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels netting the most sales of any player in the league.
In a sign of rampant demand, a Washington-area Dick’s Sporting Goods promised to open at 7 a.m. on Monday if the Commanders defeat the Eagles in Sunday’s NFC championship game.
The apostrophes are killing me https://t.co/vfbyQjJyzp
— Pete Hailey (@PeteHaileyNBCS) January 24, 2025
And Monday being randomly not capitalized
— John D (@ItsJJD) January 24, 2025
The Athletic (paywall)
Commanders QB Jayden Daniels brushes aside fan chatter in lead-up to NFC championship
Daniels twice had decisive touchdown passes and led a game-winning drive capped by Zane Gonzalez’s 37-yard field goal in the wild-card round at Tampa Bay. Beating Detroit extended the overall win streak to seven.
“Over the last (several) weeks, we’ve gotten better on the field, but we’ve also gotten better in between our ears,” coach Dan Quinn said. “We’re more resilient, we have more belief, we’re mentally tougher than we’ve ever been. … Jayden being right in the middle of that has definitely had an impact. Knowing that you’re never really outta the fight, that’s a big deal.”
The final step for the franchise coming off a 4-13 campaign to reach the Super Bowl for the first time in 33 years means beating a division rival for the second time this season.
The previous five rookie quarterbacks to reach the championship round have all lost. They were also more of a supporting cast member to strong defenses or power running backs. Daniels has been Washington’s driving force for a team with only McLaurin as a true offensive playmaker and a defense that ranked 30th in rush yards allowed in the regular season. This week’s scenario naturally places more pressure on the participants, but Daniels hasn’t been affected by pressure yet.
“For me, football — it’s fun. It’s like a safe haven for me,” said Daniels, who lost his paternal grandparents to COVID-19 in 2021. “Everything I’ve been through personally in my life, I’m not really going out there and stressing about the moment. … It’s a blessing to be one of those kids that are able to fulfill their dream and live out their dream of playing on Sundays in the NFL.”
Washington Post (paywall)
The skeptics who still doubt the Commanders are missing the point
Forget the odds: These Washington Commanders are magic, and the fun is just getting started.
Because the public assumes the Washington Commanders are not in the same class as Philadelphia, Kansas City and Buffalo, they expect that Washington has little chance to win the Super Bowl.
Being an underdog doesn’t define your fate — not once you get this far. The 1998 Capitals had the eighth-best regular season record in the NHL but went to the Stanley Cup finals. The 2018 Caps had the sixth-best record but won the Cup. The 2019 Nationals were a wild card with the eighth-best regular season record. They were surrounded — outside Washington, at least — by the same “why bother” odds and attitude. But we know what happened.
Aside from the value of optimism and enthusiasm for their own sake, there’s rational reason for cheerfulness. The way these four teams have played in recent weeks and factoring in their relative health and the varying amounts of postseason pressure on their shoulders, I don’t think there’s much difference at all between any of them.
The opposite of baggage is buoyancy. That’s what teams such as the Commanders — and their fans — now have. One of the biggest pleasures of being a fan is the time spent in perfectly reasonable anticipation of something that, on average, only happens once every generation in a 32-team league.
Why would you wait until after your team wins the trophy, or gets to play for it, to find yourself on a weekday suddenly grinning, humming, maybe whistling because, subconsciously, you know how close your team is to the goal?
Upcoming opponent
Bleeding Green Nation
Can the Eagles beat a red hot Jayden Daniels?
Opposing player to stop, NFC Championship Game edition.
The last time the Eagles saw Washington Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, he torched the NFL’s No. 1 defense for 258 yards passing and five touchdowns, completing 24 of 39 passes in Washington’s walk-off 36-33 victory at Northwest Stadium in Week 16 on Nov. 22. Jalen Hurts was injured early in that game, but Hurts was not playing defense when Washington came back from 14-0 and 21-7 deficits to score 22 points in the fourth quarter.
Want a good way to stop the streaking Daniels, who has a passer rating of 93.0 with 449 yards, with six touchdowns and three interceptions in his two games against the Eagles?Have Carter in his face all day.
The Commanders, even though they run a pass-oriented offense, ran off 73 plays against Detroit and 69 plays against Tampa Bay. In comparison, the Eagles ran off 57 against Green Bay and 61 against Los Angeles. It’s what Commanders’ offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury likes to do.
The Eagles’ defense is producing turnovers, six so far throughout the playoffs, though that hides an eye sore that everyone sees: Both the Packers and the Rams moved the ball up the field pretty easily against the Eagles. The Eagles have been outgained, 704-640, and surrendered 35 first downs, while getting 32. That is not a good trend, considering how hot Washington is entering the NFC Championship game. Washington outgained the Eagles, 369-338, when the teams met in Week 16.
Fangio has been around the NFL, it seems, since the facemask came into play. He’s seen great players. When asked this week if Daniels was the best rookie quarterback he has seen play, his answer was, “You know, probably, yeah.”
Bleeding Green Nation
Nick Foles is the Eagles’ honorary captain for the NFC Championship Game
After going with Eric Allen for their Wild Card game against the Green Bay Packers and Corey Clement for their Divisional Round game against the Los Angeles Rams, the Philadelphia Eagles’ honorary captain for their NFC Championship Game against the Washington Commanders is …
Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles!
Foles was obviously electric in the Eagles’ NFC Championship Game win over the Minnesota Vikings back in January 2018.
His presence should only help to pump up the Eagles’ home crowd even more. Lincoln Financial Field is going to be nuts on Sunday afternoon.
Podcasts & videos
Quan Martin + Charles Mann on the NFC Championship | Next Man Up | Washington Commanders | NFL
Five thoughts: on when the team knew it had something special; On Jayden Daniels, his ribs in the first meeting and his mindset. Poise. Keys on offense; brown vs Lattimore on D; slowing Barkley. More. @ESPNRichmond https://t.co/nnAaEBsgng
— John Keim (@john_keim) January 25, 2025
Rich Eisen: What’s at Stake for Eagles and Commanders in NFC Championship Game | The Rich Eisen Show
Kevin Burkhardt has the TV play by play, and he, too, joined @CraigHoffman to preview the NFC Title Game! https://t.co/Sfrd76zFyM pic.twitter.com/vtT3vjFllf
— The Team 980 (@team980) January 25, 2025
NFC East links
Blogging the Boys
Report: Brian Schottenheimer getting 4-year deal to be Dallas Cowboys head coach
Much has been reported about what Schottenheimer’s staff could look like and time will ultimately tell on that case. Something of extreme fascination though was always going to be how long the deal that Schottenheimer (or whoever got the job) was going to get, given how the Cowboys have led the last three head coach contracts all expire (Mike McCarthy and Jason Garrett twice).
It is reportedly a four-year deal.
There has also been a ton of speculation that the Cowboys have a fixation with Jason Witten serving as a future head coach of the team. Perhaps they feel like four years is a proper amount of time for that process to fully unfold, aka Project 82.
If the Cowboys do not let Schottenheimer finish his deal out, then they would be firing a head coach before their contract reaches its end for the first time since Wade Phillips and at present time that was 15 years ago.
Report: Jason Witten may not wind up part of Dallas Cowboys staff after all
While Schottenheimer ultimately was named head coach, at one point in time Witten was being connected to the job himself. To date Witten has no coaching experience at the collegiate or professional levels, and many have thought that a plan to groom him may be in place which would obviously require him to join an NFL staff, the Cowboys in all likelihood.
There have been mixed feelings on this potential, many that fans have been vocalizing ever since Witten’s name first popped on the overall coaching radar. For what it’s worth, according to NFL Network’s Jane Slater, it seems like Witten may not be joining the staff after all.
Slater notes that Witten is not “part of their considerations” and adds that he and Jerry Jones have maintained their relationship. Perhaps there was never any legitimacy to the idea of Witten joining the Cowboys staff, whether as head coach or in some other capacity, or perhaps there has been an about face of sorts.
ESPN
What Schottenheimer hire means for Prescott, Cowboys
What are you hearing around the league on the hire?
Coaches, executives and industry people I spoke to were shocked that Schottenheimer rose to the top of Jerry Jones’ list above seemingly more qualified candidates. Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, a former Cowboys player and the former OC in Dallas, was believed to covet the job and there is surprise in league circles that Dallas didn’t wait to explore that possibility more fully.
That said, there are reasons cited by sources around the league about why a Schottenheimer tenure can be successful. He’ll bring continuity to the offense and a comfort level with Prescott — there is a belief within the league that Prescott advocated for Schottenheimer.
People around the league believe Schottenheimer can put a good staff together, potentially including Eberflus as the DC. Schottenheimer has been around a long time and seen a lot — he might not have the name cachet of some of those mentioned as possibilities for the job, but he also projects as someone who can provide a steadying hand for an organization that seems to attract chaos at every turn.
How would you grade this hire?
C. What was the point of moving on from McCarthy to promote his offensive coordinator? Is something going to change schematically with another branch off the West Coast tree? Is game management supposed to improve with a first-time head coach?
I’m sure Schottenheimer has some new ideas and can modernize in some ways, but there’s a reason why he has been a lifelong offensive coordinator and was — as recently as two years ago — an offensive analyst. Schottenheimer is not viewed as a frontier-pushing head coaching candidate.
Photos
Commanders.com
PHOTOS | Round 3 with Philly
Check out the best photos of the Washington Commanders preparing for the NFC Championship against the Philadelphia Eagles
