It wasn't pretty at all (it rarely is against the Redskins/WFT/Commanders), but Philly gets out of this one with a win. The Birds had a six game streak going of outgaining their opponents by at least 50 yards get snapped today (Washington actually dominated the box score overall), but Philly hung around in the first half and made most of the biggest plays in the second half. It's pretty clear at this point which directions these teams are heading in, so I'm not going to prognosticate too long on the game itself other than to say that the goals should have been to grab the win and avoid major injuries; missions accomplished! Let's give out a few grades:
Jalen Hurts: B. Another up and down performance by Jalen; some big time throws and scrambles intermingled by puzzling decisions and of course that nasty goal line fumble. In some ways we're still waiting on that big breakout performance from him for this year.
Running backs: B. Let's be clear; this is an "A" for Swift and a "D-" for Gainwell, who's appalling fumble nearly buried Philly in the second quarter.
Wide Receivers: A. AJ Brown's 6th straight game of 125+ yards is the new NFL record. DeVonta Smith and Julio Jones both scored.
Tight Ends: C. Dallas Goedert had a drop, and I don't recall much of anything else of note from the TEs.
Offensive Line: D. Maybe another viewing is in order, but watching the game live it seemed that the run blocking was inconsistent at best and Hurts was under pressure all day. Not a great effort for these guys.
Defensive Line: C. Haason Reddick keeps showing up late in games; his late sack on 4th down slammed the door. Other than that, there were few moments worth getting excited over from these guys.
Linebackers: B. Zach Cunningham had one of his better halves of the season, after halftime today. He made plays in both the run and pass game. No one else did much of note, good or bad.
Defensive backs: F. Just a bad effort by the pass coverage group all around; Commander receivers were running wild and wide open all afternoon. Washington drops prevented the day from being so much worse (I believe I counted three or four, including at least two on fourth down).
Special teams: A. Covey had a really good PR that may have been even better had Nolan Smith not gotten in the way. Devonta Smith's clutch onsides kick recovery was one of the better plays of the day, considering the moment. Elliott nailed yet another important FG from 50+.
Coaching: C-. I'll take the silver lining that a road win against a divisional rival is always a positive outcome, but I can't go higher than this. I'm genuinely unsure why Washington poses such a big problem for this team, but today makes three straight really ugly outings against this team. Perhaps the case could be made that this was a trap game, situated as it was between last week's Miami game and next week's clash with Dallas, but to me that suggests a coaching failure. Sirianni improves to 5-1 vs. Washington but most of those games have been total rock fights.
When I was a kid in the 90s and the Cowboys seemed to rule the division, I remember one season when Dallas won the NFC East (and the Super Bowl) but got swept by Washington in the regular season. Sometimes inferior teams just match up well with a given opponent, and you have to throw away the records and just survive. Philly did that today.
On to Dallas! I'll probably have something to read about the Cowboys game later in the week.
Comments