Did Eagles’ ‘uncharacteristic’ ability to stop the Commanders on 3rd down give blueprint of how to beat them?

PHILADELPHIA – It was loud in the fourth quarter at Lincoln Financial Field on Monday night, with the crowd trying to rally around the Eagles defense with 1:45 to go in the game against the Washington Commanders. The Eagles were down 26-21 and were facing a third and seven, looking to get the ball back to the offense with the hopes of engineering a game-winning drive.

Commanders quarterback Taylor Heinicke went back and was looking to throw the ball. However, linebacker Haason Reddick had other plans and went to take him down. Seeing he had nowhere to go with the ball, Heinicke went to a knee. Defensive end Brandon Graham was also coming to sack Heinicke, trying to slow down before bumping into him, drawing a flag from referee Alex Kemp for roughing the passer and extending the drive. The Commanders eventually won, 32-21.

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It was third-down situations, like the one that ended with Graham’s penalty, that gave the Commanders an advantage for most of the game.

The Eagles appeared to have solved how to stop teams on third down before Monday’s loss. In the two games against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Houston Texans, the offenses only converted three of the 21 third down attempts against the Eagles defense (14.2%). However, the Commanders converted 57% of their attempts (12 for 21), keeping drives alive, meaning they were winning the time of possession battle.

After the game, Graham spoke about how the Commanders offense was able to succeed on third downs in the Eagles loss.

“Today, we just give the credit to Washington,” Graham said. “They put us in some positions where we did some uncharacteristic things but credit to them. They came out and played. This is one of those games that I wish I could have back, but at the end of the day, we wish we could have a bunch of calls back. But you know what? They won.”

Graham also talked about the penalty and where he goes from here after the call that essentially salted the game.

“For me, I just want to make up for it by what I do next week,” Graham said. I’m going to take that one on the chin. Of course, we’re all going to just flush it and move on. But I’m going to take that one and make sure I don’t let the team down in a situation like that.”

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Eagles cornerback Darius Slay said that the defense expected that the Commanders offense would play the way they did based on what they saw from last week.

“Every third down was like third and two, third and three, third and one, so they did a great job of managing the game,” Slay said. “We kind of knew that was what they were going to do after last week. They were going to try to make the game close and not let our offense get the ball a lot because we have an explosive offense.”

The Commanders won the time of possession battle by almost a two-to-one ratio (40:24 to 19:36), making the Eagles offense become spectators while wearing down the defense. Linebacker T.J. Edwards said the Commanders did well on early downs, helping to keep the drives going.

“We didn’t do a good enough job on first and second downs to get them in those situations where we can let our guys go eat,” Edwards said. “We didn’t execute as well as we have been this season. They also have very good players and good receivers who made some plays, but I thought we did not execute overall.”

The focus for the Eagles now becomes fixing the calls and fronts used that allowed the Commanders to move the ball down the field. You can be sure that the Indianapolis Colts took notice of how the Commanders ran the ball and may implement the same strategy by using running back and Salem native Jonathan Taylor to control the clock.

Linebacker Kyzir White gave credit to the Commanders but is already looking forward to moving on from Monday’s game and preparing for the Colts.

“They did a great job of converting on third downs. They also did a great job of managing the clock. They were the better team tonight, and I tip my hat off to them, but we will be back on Wednesday ready to work.”

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Chris Franklin may be reached at cfranklin@njadvancemedia.com.

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