The Eagles bottled up Jayden Daniels during a 24-22 triumph in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA — It looked like a false start.
Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert made an incredible play when he hauled in Jalen Hurts’s pass and made defenders miss on his way to a 43-yard touchdown. But right before the snap, multiple players on the left side of the Eagles’ formation appeared to move. The officials didn’t call a penalty, and Goedert’s score stood.
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Instead of facing third and 11, Philadelphia extended its lead late in the fourth quarter. It proved to be the decisive play as the Washington Commanders fell, 24-22, at Lincoln Financial Field to open the season.
“That stings, man. It does. A lot,” Commanders Coach Dan Quinn said. “Really loved our fight. … The miscues, I thought, hurt us in this game, and those were the margins right there. Those are the lessons I want to make sure that we apply moving forward.”
While the uncalled false start will draw the ire of many fans — Quinn said he didn’t receive an explanation from the officials — it wasn’t the reason Washington lost. The primary culprit was an offense that was held in check for most of the game by a swarming Eagles defense.
There was plenty of blame to go around. Rookie offensive coordinator David Blough was overmatched against veteran Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. Quarterback Jayden Daniels completed just 18 of 34 passes for 164 yards. Wide receiver Terry McLaurin was held to two catches. The offensive line played poorly.
After scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter, wide receiver Stefon Diggs committed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for excessive celebration, forcing Washington to settle for an extra point instead of attempting a two-point conversion to tie it.
Daniels said the Commanders “need to be smarter” and took the onus for not reiterating the gravity of the situation in the huddle. But when asked about the penalty, Diggs took responsibility.
“That was a little bit out of the frustration [from] throughout the game,” Diggs said. “I wanted things to go right, and finally we hit one and I got a little overzealous and I get a little excited. Of course, I take full accountability.”
It was a defensive struggle on both sides to start. In the first quarter, each team punted twice while gaining just four first downs combined. The lone points came on a 55-yard field goal by Washington’s Drew Stevens.
Toward the end of the period, however, the Eagles’ offense found a spark. Commanders cornerback Mike Sainristil seemed to lose sight of the ball in coverage and turned the wrong way, leaving Philadelphia wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks wide open for a 64-yard completion.
A holding penalty and a tackle for a loss from Washington’s Javon Kinlaw put the Eagles in a third-and-17 situation. But Goedert found a soft spot in Washington’s zone, and Hurts hit him in stride for a touchdown to take the lead.
Later in the second quarter, Eagles running back Saquon Barkley made Leo Chenal miss just after the line of scrimmage and broke loose for a 42-yard scamper. That set up another Philadelphia touchdown, this time a nine-yard catch by Wicks.
Meanwhile, the Commanders’ offense fell into a rut. After scoring on the opening drive, the unit had three consecutive three-and-outs and four straight punts.
During that stagnant stretch, Blough leaned on 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends, two wide receivers) and attempted to get the run game going. But the Philadelphia defense stifled most of those attempts while primarily staying in its nickel package and playing with two high safeties, which made it more difficult for Washington to stretch the field. Daniels completed just 6 of 16 passes for 43 yards before halftime.
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Asked whether the offense was rusty, Daniels responded: “Yeah, I think so. It’s been a long time since I played football.” It was his first full game since Week 6 last season.
On their penultimate drive of the first half, the Commanders ended their drought. Blough opened things up by using more three-wide receiver formations. Daniels began scrambling more. And, most notably, Jacory Croskey-Merritt and the ground game got going. The result was a 12-play, 72-yard drive capped by Croskey-Merritt’s one-yard scoring run.
“I thought it came a little bit better as the game went on with the runs and the play-pass,” Quinn said. “Sticking with the run game, I thought, was significant. … When [the run and pass] marry and balance together, you get a lot more chances for the explosives.”
Although Stevens’s extra point was blocked, the score still trimmed the Eagles’ lead to 14-9. And it was the first time the offense hit its stride: The Commanders had six first downs on the drive — doubling their total from the rest of the first half.
That success wouldn’t carry over into the second half. The offense went scoreless across three drives in the third quarter. They kept getting behind the sticks and finding themselves in third-and-longs.
“Especially a really good defense like that, you don’t want to be in a third-and-long,” Daniels said. “We shot ourselves in the foot too many times. It came back and haunted us at the end of the game.”
Washington broke through on a 67-yard drive capped by Diggs’s 10-yard catch in the fourth quarter. But they were unable to attempt to tie to game because of his excessive celebration.
Once Goedert’s second score extended the Eagles’ lead to 24-16, the Commanders had a crack at forcing overtime. After hitting McLaurin for a six-yard gain on fourth and two to keep the drive alive, Daniels picked out Antonio Williams for a one-yard touchdown grab with 1:01 remaining. But the Eagles bottled up John Bates on a shovel pass from Daniels on the two-point conversion attempt, and Philadelphia recovered the ensuing onside kick to seal the game.
The two-point attempt had an option where Daniels could have thrown the ball to running back Rachaad White, who was open in the flat. Daniels said the shovel pass to Bates was the right read based on the reaction of the defensive end toward the offensive left. But center Nick Allegretti whiffed on his block, allowing Eagles defensive tackle Moro Ojomo to blow up the play.
“We had the look that we wanted,” Daniels said. “We just didn’t execute.”
The Commanders were without three starters: left tackle Laremy Tunsil, defensive end Dorance Armstrong and cornerback Trey Amos. On top of that, linebacker Frankie Luvu went down with a groin injury in the second quarter, and tight end Chig Okonkwo suffered a hamstring injury in the third. Armstrong will be back next week, but Amos will have to miss at least three more games on injured reserve, while Tunsil could miss the entire season with a torn triceps. The statuses of Luvu and Okonkwo were unclear.
Excluding last year’s season finale, when the Eagles rested their starters, the Commanders haven’t won in Philadelphia since November 2022. Washington will attempt to bounce back when it heads to Texas next Sunday to face the Dallas Cowboys.
“It’s a long season,” Daniels said. “It’s all about catching a rhythm and continuing to build. There’s ebbs and flows in a season. You got to take the lessons that you learn from different losses.”
