On Monday night, the Philadelphia Eagles’ defeat at the hands of the Washington Commanders handed them their first loss and dropped them to 8-1 on the season. While no defeat in the NFL is ever a good thing, are the positives that can be taken from the game that will help the team that still has the best record in the entire league as we move on through the 2002 season?
Eagles Defeat
The longer you are undefeated, the greater the pressure that builds. There is a reason that the 1972 Miami Dolphins are still the only undefeated team in NFL history, and they were a team that was lucky to get to that mark with a couple of their games during the season. Everyone wants to take a swing at an undefeated team, playing above their usual level with the chance to be known as the squad that ended perfection.
Jalen Hurts – who you can support with your ‘Fly Hurts Fly’ merch – said it best with this quote in his press conference post-game.
“Now we can dictate how we want to respond to this adversity, this obstacle in our way. What is done is done, so there’s definitely a so-what, now-what mentality. And I know my mentality moving forward. I know my attention to detail in terms of my preparation and how that’ll look moving forward. I know my eagerness to play to the standard moving forward. I know what that is.”
This is what a team and a fanbase want to hear from its leader. There are no excuses here, no blaming of players or officials (even though Hurts had every right to do so). Instead, this is a player owning the defeat and knowing that you can learn much more from a loss than from a win.
Moving Forward
The first takeaway from the defeat is that the Eagles must have more of the ball. The NFL is a weird league with few elite teams and far between. The Washington Commanders are far from an elite team, but any team with a time of possession advantage of 40:24 to 19:36 is going to be very difficult to beat.
The Commanders knew they had to keep Hurts off the field. They succeeded by draining the life out of the clock – and Eagles fans – with long drives punctuated by Eagles’ three-and-outs. That is on both the play caller and the quarterback, with both knowing that the worst thing to do after a long scoring drive by the opposition is to let them back on the field quickly.
The Commanders only rushed for 3.1 yards per carry, but they had an insane 49 carries on the day. They also faced 21 third downs – converting 12 – while the Eagles were an impressive 5-for-8 on third downs too.
The problem was that greatest of NFL equalizers, the turnover. Washington had two, but Philadelphia had four. Any game where a team finishes -2 in the turnover margin will take a mighty effort to win, and the Eagles didn’t have that on this day.
The haters will say that the Eagles have been exposed. The best way to kill that narrative is for Philly to go out and take care of business against the Colts on Sunday.
Always remember folks to bleed Eagles’ green, and Fly Hurts Fly!