After losing to the Eagles in week 11, what will be different this time around?
It’s week 16 of the NFL season and the 9-5 Washington Commanders will be facing a 12-2 Eagles team at Northwest Stadium in Landover, MD this Sunday at 1:00 pm ET. Although the Eagles started the season with a shaky 2-2 record, they haven’t lost a game since and seem to be getting better as other teams get more injured. Right now their record is tied with the Lions and Vikings for best in the NFC. The Lions currently win the tiebreaker for #1 seed having had more conference wins, but that will change if the Lions lose another game and the Eagles continue to win out.
The Eagles offense and defense were broken down in more detail in our last 5Qs with them. The short summary is that the defense has excelled through a combination of new talent at critical positions and excellent coaching by new DC Vic Fangio. At the time of our last matchup, there was some doubt as to how much of their defensive improvement was due to a weak offensive schedule and how much was actual improvement, but there can be no doubt now: the Eagles have the best defense in the NFL. Philadelphia has allowed the fewest points and fewest total yards of any NFL team, having held the explosive offenses of the Bengals, Ravens, and Rams each to 20 points or less.
Although the Eagles offense hasn’t been quite as good as the defense, it has still been good, ranking 6th in total yards and 9th in total points. If you break the Eagles point differential down by quarter, they have the highest point differential in the NFL in the 4th quarter. This is no doubt due to the grinding, run-centric nature of their offense that tends to wear opposing defenses out until they collapse at the end of the game.
I asked Brandon Lee Gowton of Bleeding Green Nation five questions to better understand the state of the Eagles and what to look for in this game.
1) What do you think you learned about both our teams in our last matchup?
Two big Eagles takeaways from that game:
1. The Eagles have the best defense in the NFL.
2. Saquon Barkley is capable of taking over the game at any point.
On the first point, Vic Fangio’s defense held a Commanders offense that was averaging 28.4 points per game and 377 yards per game to a season-low 18 points and 264 yards. And that’s including eight points scored and 70 yards gained in garbage time.
That performance was hardly an outlier. The Eagles have allowed the fewest offensive points per game (16.9) and fewest yards per game (275.6) in the NFL. The combination of coaching and talent has manifested in a top-notch defense.
On the second point, Barkley had 20 carries go for just 70 yards (3.5 average) and zero touchdowns after the third quarter. His final six carries resulted in 76 yards and two touchdowns. The Eagles quickly went from trailing by four points to being up by 16 points. Barkley’s been a closer for this team with his ability to regularly produce back-breaking runs in the fourth quarter.
As for the Commanders’ side of things, I learned that Jayden Daniels — while very good — is mortal. He can be stymied by a top defense.
I also learned that Mike Sainristil is a pretty good player. The rookie did a nice job of containing A.J. Brown, relatively speaking. 65 yards marked Brown’s third-lowest receiving total this season.
2) How are the Eagles different from the last time these teams faced off?
On the injury front, the Eagles are more banged up than they were last time.
Since that game, they lost Brandon Graham — who was having a great season and played well against the Commanders — to a season-ending triceps injury. They’ve also placed top tight end Dallas Goedert and fullback/ST contributor Ben VanSumeren on injured reserve. The former is expected to return for the playoffs.
The Birds entered Week 11 with zero players listed on their final injury report. This time, rotational edge rusher Bryce Huff and depth safety/special teams contributor Sydney Brown are contenders to miss the game.
A positive change for the Eagles is their passing game outlook. Jalen Hurts just turned in his best game of the season against a tough Pittsburgh Steelers defense. It remains to be seen if that performance was a legitimate turning point for the passing offense or if they’ll revert to previous struggles. For now, there’s reason to be encouraged.
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3) The Eagles defense seems to be the best defense in the NFL. How did it get so good?
Vic Fangio deserves a lot of credit. Simply put, the Eagles look like a well-coordinated defense. You don’t really see them make many mistakes; they’re incredibly assignment-sound. They stop the run well, they tackle well, they cover well, they rush the passer well … everything’s been working in harmony.
Of course, the talent is a huge factor as well. Unit-by-unit:
Defensive line: Jalen Carter is a beast who’s regularly causing disruption despite often drawing double teams. Nolan Smith has made a leap from Year 1 to Year 2 to be a good edge rusher. Josh Sweat has bounced back after being ice cold down the stretch last season. Jordan Davis can help stuff the run.
Off-ball linebackers: Zack Baun deserves to be first-team All-Pro. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say he’s been the best linebacker in the NFL this season. Baun is Pro Football Focus’s second-highest graded linebacker, only behind Fred Warner. He leads his positions in “stops” (tackles that constitute a failure for the offense) with 10 more than the next closest player … fellow Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean, who’s also been really good. Baun is strong in coverage, allowing just a 81.2 passer rating when targeted. He gave up a catch on this play last week but it’s still an pretty incredible considering the context:
The fact that Zack Baun was even close to defending this Flea Flicker was pretty wild vs a 4.3 WR
Secondary: Quinyon Mitchell locking up Terry McLaurin is just part of his Defensive Rookie of the Year resume. Cooper DeJean’s been really strong in the slot. Darius Slay can still play at a high level. C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Reed Blankenship are both capable of making plays at the safety position.
As I previously said, it’s just been a great marriage of talent and coaching. And, on the latter point, not just from Fangio but the Eagles’ position coaches as well.
4) The Eagles front office seems to have done an incredible job of loading the roster with good players. Where do you think the front office is strongest and where does it still need to improve?
The Eagles aren’t afraid to spend, which is a big credit to Jeffrey Lurie. A look at their rankings in active cash spending this year and beyond, per Over The Cap:
2024: 3rd
2025: 1st
2026: 2nd
2027: 1st
2028: 1st
They’ve done a real nice job of retaining their homegrown talent in addition to making impact acquisitions via trade/free agency. Kudos to Howie Roseman for taking advantage of his resources.
When it comes to weaknesses, Roseman’s been better at building rosters from scratch than he has been at maintaining them. Though that perception might be changing. I’d also say that the Eagles’ front office has gotten into trouble by outsmarting themselves sometimes. There have been some galaxy brain moves that haven’t quite panned out.
But, all told, hard to complain too much at the moment. The front office has really been the biggest driver of their success since 2021.
Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
5) What do you think about where the Commanders are and where they are going?
I think the Commanders are good but not yet great.
They’ve done well to take care of business against their lesser opponents with a 9-1 record against teams at or below .500.
But they’re 0-4 against teams currently above .500. I think their ceiling for this season is limited to winning one playoff game, which would be a pretty impressive turnaround after having the No. 2 overall pick last year.
To be clear, I do think the Commanders will put up a good fight this weekend. I expect Dan Quinn to be preaching that they don’t want to allow the Eagles to come in and clinch the division at FedEx Field.
Long-term, I think the Commanders have the chance to be a problem in the NFC East for years to come. Daniels seems like the real deal. Adam Peters seems capable of filling this roster out with more talent. Quinn is certainly a credible coach.
It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of Kliff Kingsbury and how his potential exit could impact Daniels’ development. The possibility of Daniels having a sophomore slump like the one we’ve seen from C.J. Stroud exists.
But I think we’ll see the Commanders competing for the division lead and perhaps more in 2025.
A companion article to this with my answers to Brandon’s questions can be found here.
Thanks again to Brandon Lee Gowton for taking time out of his day to answer our questions about the Eagles.