5 winners and losers from Eagles Week 16 loss: Second seed bound

The Philadelphia Eagles' winning streak came to an end in Week 16 when they had a dumbfounding 36-33 loss to the Washington Commanders. It was another game highlighted by the early exit of Jalen Hurts and the defense being the epitome of ‘hit-or-miss.’ 

It was gross. It was ugly. It felt cheap. Now, with a 12-3 record, the Eagles are realistically out of contention for the first seed in the NFC. Sunday was a bad day.

The Eagles' loss all but confirms a third game against Washington in the playoffs

It’s hard to win games in the NFL. It’s really hard to win games with your backup quarterback playing for three-quarters of the game in the NFL. It’s really really hard to win 12-straight games in the NFL. The Eagles weren’t able to do any of those in Week 16. 

The Eagles’ backup quarterback Kenny Pickett isn’t entirely to blame, but he does get a good chunk of it. There were a handful of other performances that led to the disappointing loss.

Loser: Familiarity

In Week 2, the Eagles lost to the Atlanta Falcons when Saquon Barkley dropped an easy catch on a third-and-three with 1:46 left in the game. After that drop, the Eagles kicked a field goal to go up six points, and the Falcons went right down the field and scored the game-winning touchdown.

In Week 16, DeVonta Smith anomolously dropped an easy catch on a third-and-five with 2:07 left in the game. After that drop, the Eagles kicked a field goal to go up five points, and the Falcons went right down the field and scored the game-winning touchdown.

Not only is it gutting to know that the Eagles are two drops away from a 16-1 record, but it makes it even worse that the two drops are from elite players. If it was Will Shipley who dropped the ball in Week 2 and Johnny Wilson who dropped it this week, it’d stink, but it wouldn’t hurt your heart.

Everyone knows how good these two guys are. They’d make their respective plays 99 times out of 100. It just so happens that the one time they don’t is in do-or-die situations. It’s tough.

Loser: Not liking Jalen Hurts

On the Eagles' second drive of the game, Jalen Hurts ran the ball down to the Commanders’ 21-yard line when Washington’s linebacker Frankie Luvu had an incredibly dirty hit on Hurts while he was sliding. That hit ended up making Jalen leave the game with a concussion.

After that, Kenny Pickett threw the ball to A.J. Brown a couple of times to finish the drive with a touchdown. That was pretty much it for Kenny. He ended the game going 14-of-24 for 114 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. He was just fine; he wasn't otherworldly terrible and he wasn’t good either.

The problem was how the Commanders’ defense played the Eagles’ offense after that drive. They sold out on the run and said, ‘Hey, Kenny. If you want to beat us, you’re going to have to use those teensy little baby-boy hands of yours to throw the ball. We don’t think you can do it.’ They were right. 

Fans and talking heads have been criticizing Jalen Hurts in this offense pretty much since the get-go. Saying garbage like, ‘Anyone can quarterback in that offense,’ or ‘If there was any other quarterback in that offense, they’d be able to throw for 300 yards a game with A.J. and DeVonta,’ or the classic terrible take with glaring racial undertones, ‘He’s just a running back.’ All clearly terrible takes. 

We’ve seen other quarterbacks (Garnder Minshew and Marcus Mariota) try to run this ship. They can’t. Kenny Pickett found his way to the red zone just twice after his first drive, and one of those trips was due to 61 defensive pass interference yards. It looked gross and inefficient because it was gross and inefficient.

When Jalen was in, he was on track to turn the game into a bloodbath. He only had one completion for 11 yards, but he had 41 rushing yards on three carries. Later in the game, Kenny took some deep shots that were clearly plays drawn up specifically for Jalen and A.J. Brown. They didn’t click for Pickett. 

It just stinks, you know? It’d be cool if Jalen could play a game against the Commanders where his brain didn’t get turned into soup. Luckily, he’ll have a chance to do just that in the playoffs.

Winner: Abusing and Neglecting Power

One thing both Eagles and Commanders fans can agree on from this game is that the officiating was atrocious. There were a total of 16 penalties: 10 against the Eagles (91 yards) and six against the Commanders (93 yards). 

Shawn Smith was the referee for this game. Shawn Smith was also the referee for the Wild Card game in 2019, where Jadeveon Clowney had a dirty hit on Carson Wentz that gave him a concussion and took him out of the game. Neither that hit nor the hit on Sunday was penalized. So… that’s cool. At least he’s consistently bad.

At the end of the first quarter, C.J. Gardner-Johnson was called for Unsportsmanlike Conduct after Dyami Brown punched him in the face causing C.J.’s helmet to come off. So, not only was that incredibly stupid, but Dyami Brown wasn’t also called for a penalty. 

If you read that and thought, ‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ you’re right—it doesn’t, and there’s not.

The Commanders ended up fumbling on that drive, so the penalty yards didn’t matter. It was the fact that a player gets disqualified after two unsportsmanlike penalties… that was the problem. That hardly ever happens though, and the call on C.J.G.J was incredibly soft, so they wouldn’t call him on one again, right?

Wrong. Early in the third quarter, the Eagles recovered another fumble, and the broadcast cut to commercial. When it came out of the commercial, we saw C.J. walking off the field without his helmet. 

Turns out he was disqualified for another unsportsmanlike penalty, and no one has any idea what happened. There were no replays, no comments from teammates, and no description whatsoever. That has to be the first time that anyone has ever been disqualified from an NFL game for talking.

Luckily, after the game, we got a perfect explanation in the Pool Report:

“...Basically taunting…” Great. 10/10 explanation. Nothing else needs to be said. Basically taunting is a 15-yard penalty and disqualifiable. What an absolute clown show. 

On top of that, we saw Jalen Carter basically end a man’s life by basically reaching into his chest and tearing out his heart.

That level of violence is uncalled for. That’s basically a felony. 

Winner: Takeaways

The worst part about this game is how the defense was either slaughtering the Commanders’ offense or seemingly non-existent. Other than a couple of drives in the first half, every Commanders’ drive ended with a turnover or a touchdown. 

It’d be criminal not to acknowledge everyone who had a takeaway because it was spectacularly electric. 

Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis had an awesome fourth-down stop on the first drive. On the Commanders’ second drive, Jalen Carter had an awesome punch-out on Brian Robinson and Nolan Smith recovered it. On the Commanders’ fifth drive, Nakobe Dean and Cooper DeJean forced another Brian Robinson fumble and DeJean recovered it. On the Commanders’ last drive of the first half, C.J.G.J. had one of the easiest interceptions in the history of football. On the Commanders' first drive of the second half, Zack Baun forced Dyami Brown to fumble with a great punch-out. Then near the end of the game, Darius Slay gave Reed Blankenship an awesome interception via tip-drill. Videos of all of those are below.

It’s so dumb that those turnovers weren’t enough. The offense only turned those six turnovers into 20 points. There were two touchdowns (very early on), one punt, one missed field goal, and two made field goals.

Something that shouldn’t be lost in the shuffle, is that Zack Baun has forced five fumbles this season. That puts him in second place in the entire league for forced fumbles behind only T.J. Watt. 

Loser: Terrible, awful, no-good, very bad mistakes

One of the biggest plays of the game was Olamide Zacchaeus’ 49-yard touchdown. The Eagles were penalized with 12 men on the field because there was some kind of communication error about Darius Slay being on the field. 

Saly realized that he was the 12th man, and decided to run off the field. That was bad for two reasons: he didn’t make it and he was the only player that was in position to cover Olamide. It turns out that if the guy who’s in the spot to cover a wide receiver runs off the field, then that receiver is going to be the most open player ever.

That’s exactly what happened. In a perfect world, Slay (who is in his 12th season in the NFL) would recognize that the whole situation is bad and stay on the field to cover. That way it’s just a penalty and not a really dumb and undeserved touchdown.

Other than that, the kickoff and kickoff coverage were ridiculously bad. Hell, the game started with Braden Mann kicking the ball short of the landing zone, which gave the Commanders that ball at their own 40-yard line. Then on the last kickoff (which included an illegal formation penalty on the Eagles), the Commanders started on their own 53-yard line. 

All in all, the Commanders' drives started at their own 38ish-yard line after kickoffs on average. Just boot the ball into the end zone so the drives start on the 30. This whole thing was pathetic.

All three phases lost this game. The offense was ineffective, the defense had trouble, and the special teams were bad. Luckily, we’ve seen what we needed to see from this team to believe that they’ll be able to win in the postseason. 

You can probably disregard everything that you saw in this game. It was an Eagles offense without Jalen Hurts and a bunch of dumb uncharacteristic stuff on defense. 

Let’s move on to a Kelly Green Dallas week and forget this whole thing ever happened… except for the Jale Elliott 50-yard field goal. Don’t forget that.