Ron Jaworski and Reuben Frank share their instant reactions to the Eagles’ Week 16 loss to the Commanders.
Kenny Pickett almost won it, and the NFL’s top-ranked defense lost it.
After Pickett drove the Eagles to a couple late field goals, the Eagles’ vaunted defense let the Commanders drive the length of the field for its third touchdown of the fourth quarter.
The winning streak is gone, their hopes for the No. 1 seed took a huge hit and the Eagles may need to regroup against the Cowboys Sunday without Jalen Hurts, who is now in concussion protocol.
First time the Eagles have blown a 13-point 4th-quarter lead in five years.
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Commanders 36, Eagles 33.
This was bad.
1. The defense had been playing so well since the bye it was shocking to see them collapse like this – 36 points, 368 yards, five TD passes, 22 points in the fourth quarter. They allowed more points in the final 13 1/2 minutes of the game than they had allowed in any game since before the bye. They just fell to pieces in the fourth quarter, allowing touchdown drives of 61, 87 and 57 yards, including Jayden Daniels’ game-winning touchdown pass to Jamison Crowder with six seconds left. Daniels kept the Eagles’ defense off balance in the fourth quarter both throwing it and running it, and the Eagles looked gassed trying to slow him and his receivers down. In the fourth quarter alone, Daniels threw for 139 yards with three touchdowns. In all, he threw five touchdowns and ran for 82 yards against the top-rated pass defense in the league. The Eagles sure missed Josh Sweat, who left with an ankle injury in the second quarter, and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who got himself ejected after picking up his second unsportsmanlike conduct. The Eagles forced five turnovers, which was encouraging to see, but by the fourth quarter they had no answers. Coverage fell apart, tackling fell apart, pass rush was non-existent. They just needed one final stop and they couldn't get it.
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2. Pickett wasn’t perfect at all, but dang-it, he gave the Eagles a chance to win, and if it weren’t for late drops by Saquon Barkley in the right flat on one field goal drive and DeVonta Smith over the middle on the next, the Eagles would have won the game and they’d still be riding that winning streak. Pickett had a nice TD pass to A.J. Brown on his first drive and he also had that 45-yarder to Brown on a non-scoring drive, picked up 67 yards on three Marshon Lattimore DPIs on A.J. Brown and converted two gutsy 4th-down passes on a 4th-quarter field goal drive. The interception deep in Eagles territory was terrible and led directly to Washington’s first touchdown, and his fumble deep in Washington territory could have been disastrous. Fortunately, Lane Johnson recovered. But Pickett put 26 points up on the scoreboard in his first playing time in a year and his first game as an Eagle against the NFL’s No. 4 pass defense, and if not for those two drops he wins the game. Most likely, Pickett will start against the Cowboys Sunday, although it’s not unheard of for someone to clear the protocol in a week. If he plays like this against the Cowboys Sunday, he’ll give the Eagles a shot.
3. Chauncey Gardner-Johnson is playing terrific football, and his interception Sunday was his fourth during the winning streak. But he’s always played on the edge and he got himself ejected in the middle of the third quarter for his second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. You love his energy and feistiness, but he just can’t let that happen. And who was covering Olamide Zaccheaus on his 4th-quarter touchdown catch? Tristin McCallum, who went in the game for C.J. That was Gardner-Johnson’s guy. He’s got to be smarter. He’s in his sixth year now, and he’s got to know better. Has to. Play tough, play physical, play with an edge, but you’ve got to know where the line is and don’t go over it.
4. It’s really hard to lose a game when you get five takeaways. Teams forcing five turnovers over the last 10 years were 71-5 coming into this week and 235-18 over the last 20 years. The Eagles hadn’t lost a game with five takeaways since 1999 and they were 45-3 in such games since 1975. Two takeaways: It’s great to see the Eagles’ defense this aggressive. But when you get five takeaways, you have to take advantage of those opportunities, and the Eagles didn’t. They got seven after the first turnover but the next four takeaways netted just six points – a punt, a missed field goal and two field goals. Those are opportunities you can’t squander. Five takeaways is great. Ten points off those takeaways is awful.
5. This isn’t a knock at all at Kenny Pickett, who I felt played as well as you could hope for considering the circumstances. But when you lose a guy like Jalen Hurts, everything changes. Everything. Not just the passing game but everything. Now the opposing defense is playing you differently. The running game isn’t there. Third downs become tougher to convert. It even affects the defense because the whole balance of the game and the sideline just seems off. Everything is different when your best player walks off the field and leaves the game. I think there’s an emotional toll as well. You know everybody’s heart sank a little bit when Hurts was ruled out. It’s tough to bounce back from that and the Eagles most likely will have to figure out how to play without their superstar Sunday.
6. Once Josh Sweat left the game with an ankle injury in the second quarter, the Eagles had real issues generating pressure, and that’s not surprising. That injury meant the Eagles were down Sweat, Bryce Huff and Brandon Graham from their original edge rotation. With Huff still inactive after wrist surgery and B.G. out for the year, that left Smith, rookie 3rd-round pick Jalyx Hunt and 2017 Dolphins 1st-round pick Charles Harris as the only healthy edge rushers, and it doesn’t look like Harris got in the game. Nolan Smith got an early sack, but the Commanders – who had allowed 20 sacks in their last five games – didn’t allow another one the rest of the game, and on those last three TD drives they barely pressured Daniels. And when they did, he just ran away. Sweat eventually came back into the game, and while we don't know when Huff will be back, they need both those guys if they’re going to generate the pressure they need.
7. In the big picture, I haven’t lost a lot of faith in the Eagles, although they certainly have a few things to figure out. In the long run, this loss might not even end up hurting them, because they most likely weren’t going to get the No. 1 seed if they won and they most likely will still be the No. 2 seed even though they lost. There’s still a lot to like about the 2024 Eagles and they’ve shown so much resilience all year that I’ll be surprised if they don’t bounce back in a positive way. The Super Bowl? Obviously, it's harder to win three games to get to New Orleans than two games. But this has been a resilient group all year, they seem to have a good knack for navigating their way through adversity and I don't see this loss having any sort of lasting impact on the vibe of the locker room. It was the product of a lot of unlikely and disappointing things happening all at once. But I still believe in this team. I still think they have a terrific roster and a ton of talent and a chance to do some really special things. They just need to get Jalen back, get some 3rd-down stops, catch the ball and get back to playing the kind of football they played the last 10 weeks. No reason they can't do that.
8. This was a shockingly undisciplined team that we saw in Washington. With C.J.'s ejection after his second unnecessary roughness, another personal foul on Jalen Carter, 12 men on the field on a touchdown, 10 total penalties for 91 yards and so on, this is not a winning brand of football. It was surprising to see because the Eagles have been a smart, tough, physical and disciplined team all year. But the Commanders played chippy and the Eagles tried to answer with even more chippiness and it cost them. You can't let another team kind of draw you into that sort of game. Now it's easy to sit here and say some of those penalties were bad ones, and they were. But when certain guys start piling up personal fouls refs start looking for them and they don't give them the benefit of the doubt. That's just life in the NFL. The Eagles are a very talented team, they just have to make sure they're also a very smart team.
9. It was good to see Jake Elliott finally make a 50-yarder after missing his first six this year and actually make four straight field goals - from 24, 40, 50 and 40 yards - after missing that 56-yarder just before halftime. The Eagles need Elliott confident and locked in going into the postseason and there have been some scary moments over the last few weeks. You're not going to find a better kicker on the street in Week 17 than Jake Elliott and I think NIck Sirianni has handled him just right, remaining confident in him, putting him out there in high-leverage situations and letting him work his way back to looking like the kicker he was in his first seven NFL seasons. Elliott has been so good his whole career, you can't just give up on him. And games like this one show why. He may not be quite the kicker he used to be, but I'll still take my chances with him.
10. I'm curious to see how this young defense - youngest starting defense in the NFL - responds after allowing five touchdown passes and 368 yards, including 22 points and 161 yards in the fourth quarter alone. This was the sort of collapse than can really shake the confidence of any defense, but this is a new group with a new staff and a bunch of players - Cooper DeJean, Quinyon Mitchell, Nakobe Dean, Zack Baun, Nolan Smith - who've never been starters in their career, and now they have to bounce back after allowing touchdown drives of 61, 87 and 57 yards in the span of 13 1/2 minutes. I think they'll be OK. These young guys all seem to have good heads on their shoulders. They're mature and smart and they work hard and they seem to learn from their mistakes. But those last 13 1/2 minutes were catastrophic. That was a rookie quarterback flat-out shredding the NFL's top-ranked defense. It will be interesting to see how it goes Sunday against the Cowboys.
