Game Recap: Offense

It’s a new offense and some level of slowness was to be expected.

So it went in the early goings of the game when the Eagles were forced to punt twice.

In the second quarter, the Eagles finally stuck pay dirt as a late first-quarter dime to Wicks for 64-yards set the team up in the red zone before penalties were erased by a grab by Dallas Goedert in the redzone to put the Eagles in control of the game.

Another three-and-out was followed up by Saquon breaking lose for a 42-yard run following an 8-yard run. Wicks was hit in the corner of the endzone on and underthrown ball to put the Eagles two scores up.

The majority of the third quarter was again anemic with awful offensive football from Philly before the end of the quarter saw Jalen Hurts break off a 14-yard scramble that got the Eagles moving and setup a 31-yard pass down the sidelines to Smith to setup a field goal.

With the game coming to a close and tightening up, the offense went out and finally appeared to have some traction. Behind an excellent block from Mekhi Lemon, Hurts was able to run up the middle for 22 yards on 2nd and 18. A few plays later, a 43-yard catch and run by Dallas Goedert brought the Eagles to the 24 points they needed to win the game.

Game Recap: Defense

There was some bend as two chunk plays allowed the Commanders a long field goal on the first drive of the game, but then the defense locked in.

Three straight three-and-outs for Washington took the team well into the second quarter before they allowed a first down. Just one new set of downs before they forced another punt.

On six of the 12 plays on the final Washington drive, however, the Eagles allowed plays to gain five or more yards and were generally sloppy. Two runs and two passes in the series went for over 10 yards, so the Commanders were able to get a touchdown before the half and go into the break with some confidence.

A play that came back to be huge late in the game was Jalen Carter blocking the extra point after that touchdown.

The defense came out of the half with a three-and-out, but then gave up a 15-yard pass where they lucked out a bit with a missed field goal.

They forced another three and out, but the fourth quarter came next and that was brutal to witness. The tackling was sloppy and required multiple people for a tackle to be made at almost every instance. Cooper DeJean got outplayed for big plays multiple times and the defenses’ final two drives allowed a horrific 130 yards on just 21 plays to give up two touchdowns in the quarter.

They were bailed out by Stefon Diggs being an ego maniac and taking a penalty to keep the Commanders from taking a shot at the two-point conversion.

Moro Ojomo wrapped up the game with a clean tackle on the two-point conversion, and that was the saving grace for a defense that hadn’t stopped more than two plays in a row for essentially an entire’s quarter worth of the game.

Notes:

• The defense was absolutely gassed at the end of this game. The offense needs to spend more time on the field throughout the game and the defense (particularly line) seemed like they needed to get more into game shape.
• Special teams was a standout in this one. Mann had multiple pins inside the 5-yard line and still averaged over 50 yards per punt with a long of 64. Covey remained a strong returner and you can’t say enough about another blocked kick from Jalen Carter that changed the landscape of the late game.
• The Birds could have been in real trouble in this one. A blocked extra point forced the Commanders to need two to tie and they didn’t get a second shot at that because of Diggs’ idiocy.
• Even on that final two-point conversion, the running back was open in the flat for a potential tying score had the Commanders looked that way.
• Strong play recognition from Ojomo, who the Birds will almost certainly be letting walk in free agency this offseason, won this game at the end.
• The offensive line was not good. Lane was far from what we’ve come to expect and Steen, Dickerson, and Jurgens looked like replacements might improve the team at times. The depth of the line may become more important at this rate, even if there isn’t an injury as the Birds may need to look for new futures at those spots. At least for Jurgens’ defense, something could be said about both sides of him constantly collapsing.
• Related to the line play, but there were too many runs that didn’t gain four yards or more and that may have slowed the whole offense. The amount of times a runner was hit behind the line was just unacceptable for an offense to be as high-flying as they want to be.
• Jihaad Campbell looked quite a bit like early play Nakobe Dean a few years back – he had the speed and was getting to plays, but far too many times he was in position to make the play and just didn’t. Hopefully, he can take that next step like Dean did when he was at that point.
• Hurts was fantastic on deep balls, but not so much on short routes. Nearly 45% of passes were incompletions and there were at least a few instances where he just missed an open receiver, though it’s not certain whether or not that was due to the new offense and communication issues that came up as a result of that.
• Mekhi Lemon had the big block, but otherwise was only utilized on screens that did absolutely nothing and fooled nobody.

Injury Notes:

• Marcus Epps came off early, but came back within the first half.
• A.J. Epenesa had his arm wrapped at one point.