Watching the Lions go into Chicago and beat the Bears and then losing to Josh Freaking Johnson was one of the nightmare scenarios we talked about all week.
The No. 2 seed was right there for the Eagles, but they let one of the worst quarterbacks in NFL history – Josh Johnson and his 1-10 career record – beat their backups 24-17 at the Linc.
Ouch.
The Eagles got the help they needed from the Lions, but if Nick Sirianni played his starters Sunday, it’s hard to imagine the Eagles losing to the Commanders. But here we are and instead of the two seed and a chance to play the struggling Packers in the wild-card round with a 2nd-round playoff game at the Linc, the Eagles will now draw the 49ers in the wild-card round and then head out on the road for the second round if they win. And I don’t need to remind anyone the Eagles have won five road playoff games since 1950 – they’re 5-14, with just one road postseason win since 2009 – the Double Doink in Chicago.
Despite all this, Sirianni’s approach made sense. The Eagles go into the playoffs healthy, and if he played the starters there’s no guarantee that would have happened. You just don’t expect to lose a football game to a 39-year-old journeyman with one career win in 17 seasons. That just can’t happen.
1. A disappointing performance by Tanner McKee, and that’s something we just haven’t seen from the third-year QB. He got off to a good start but really struggled as the game went on and when the Eagles had a couple drives in the final minutes with a chance to tie the game – and a tie gets them the No. 2 seed – he made a series of terrible throws. He just looked bad. He took off out of the pocket too much, struggled with pocket awareness, missed too many open guys, made bad decisions, threw a terrible interception down in the red zone and finished 5-for-14 for 40 yards on three drives in the fourth quarter. If you told me the Eagles need a Tanner McKee win over Josh Johnson to earn the No. 2 seed, you would love your chances. From what we’ve seen of McKee last year and in training camp, this sort of performance is very surprising. And very disappointing.
2. So it turns out the Eagles will have to go on the road for the conference semifinal round if they beat the 49ers in their home wild-card round game, but this has been such a good road team they’re capable of winning in any stadium. The Eagles are an NFL-best 30-13 in five years under Nick Sirianni on the road, and no other team has more than 27 road wins during that span. Sirianni is one of only two coaches in NFL history to have a winning road record in each of his first five seasons. The other is Hall of Famer Don Shula. The Eagles won in some tough buildings this year – Arrowhead, Raymond James, Lambeau, U.S. Bank, Highmark – and finished 6-2 on the road, losing only in that nightmarish Week 6 game at the Meadowlands and against the Chargers last month. The Eagles are not like a lot of other teams that struggle in tough road stadiums. Assuming they take care of business next weekend, they’ll be ready if they have to go on the road.
3. Honestly, I expected the Eagles’ defensive backups to play a lot better than this. Yikes. I thought they would dominate Josh Johnson, the 39-year-old journeyman who came in with a 1-10 career won-lost record. They did force two turnovers but also let Johnson move the ball through the air way more than he should have, didn’t sack him, even with a bunch of d-line regulars, allowed him to get outside repeatedly and make plays with his legs, gave up two touchdowns set up by pass interference calls, let the Commanders convert 55 percent of their third downs and even let Johnson throw a touchdown pass for the first time since 2021 and 14th time in his 17-year career. This is a quarterback who had never put up more than 21 points in any of his previous 11 starts and generated an average of 14.4. I get that they’re backups for a reason, but it was still a terrible performance.
4. Speaking of which … I didn’t really understand why Jakorian Bennett never got much of a chance to compete for playing time at cornerback earlier in the year when Kelee Ringo and Adoree Jackson were both struggling. This is a guy Howie Roseman traded for in the move that sent Thomas Booker to the Raiders. But we saw Sunday why. He was terrible, committing a defensive holding on one drive, a 23-yard pass interference in the end zone on the next, which set up Washington’s first touchdown, and then another DPI in the end zone in the fourth quarter, setting up Washington’s second TD. Bennett was originally a 4th-round pick out of Maryland a couple years ago, so you thought maybe he was a guy who had a future here as a backup, but he looked like he doesn’t belong in the NFL. Overall, the Eagles committed four DPIs for 88 yards – 4 and 23 yards by Bennett, 32 yards by Ringo and 29 yards by Mac McWilliams. Yikesville.
5. There was little doubt in my mind before this game that Tank Bigsby can play and he didn’t do anything to change my mind. Sixteen tough carries for 75 yards and a touchdown and a 31-yard catch-and-run for 106 scrimmage yards. And he should have had more carries. I’m not in love with that 43-to-16 pass-run ratio on a day McKee was struggling. And none of those rushing yards came easy for him as he worked behind a makeshift offensive line of rookies and backups. Bigsby is under contract for another year on the rookie deal he signed with the Jaguars last year and I want him back. There were times earlier in the year when Saquon Barkley wasn’t putting up big numbers and whenever Bigsby came in he would add some juice to the operation. There were a number of games where I thought it was warranted to give Bigsby a few more carries. He’s a legit back. Ran for nearly 800 yards and a 4.6 average with seven TDs last year in Jacksonville, and I really think he can be another weapon in this offense if used properly.
6. It was great seeing DeVonta Smith get the 44 yards he needed for his third 1,000-yard season. Got his 1,000 yards and then got off the field healthy. Smith really deserves it. He’s been so freaking good this year and you’d hate to see him fall a few yards short of a milestone that still means a lot to wide receivers. Smith is only the fifth Eagle ever with three 1,000-yard seasons, joining A.J. Brown (four) and DeSean Jackson, Mike Quick and Hall of Famer Harold Carmichael (three each). That’s elite company right there. Until 2022, the franchise had never had two 1,000-yard receivers in the same season. Now Smith and Brown have done it three times. What a WR duo the Eagles have. Smith plays in Brown’s shadow to a great extent, so it’s nice to see him get an accolade he truly deserves.
7. Jalyx Hunt’s ball skills are tremendous, and you wouldn’t expect anything else from a defensive end who played safety at Cornell, his first college stop. With his third interception on Sunday, Hunt became only the 11th defensive lineman in NFL history with three INTs in a season and the first Eagles defensive lineman with three since nose tackle Charlie Johnson in the 1980 Super Bowl season, when he made 1st-team all-pro. Hunt’s three INTs gives him as many as every Eagles cornerback combined (Cooper DeJean two, Adoree Jackson one). And he’s only the fourth defensive lineman with three INTs and six sacks in a season, joining Hall of Famer and former Eagle Richard Dent in 1990 (12 sacks, three INTs), the Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson in 2022 (9 ½, 3) and the Colts’ Laiatu Latu this year (8 ½, 3). He’s also the first Eagle ever to lead the team in both sacks and interceptions in the same season. And he also had his first career fumble recovery Sunday, which led to the Eagles’ 3rd-quarter touchdown. Terrific year for the 2nd-year player.
8. Yeah, Darius Cooper should know better, and that was a costly mistake, but I really hate the taunting penalty and it’s gotten out of hand what constitutes taunting in the NFL rulebook. If you glare at a guy after a play, that’s taunting. If you celebrate a little too much and too close to the other guy, that’s taunting. What exactly did Cooper do to cost the Eagles 15 yards and a likely touchdown? He spun the ball in the general direction of Jonathan Jones after a 17-yard catch down to the Washington 5-yard-line late in the second quarter. Instead of 1st-and-goal at the 5, the Eagles had 1st-and-10 on the 20 and that’s when Tanner McKee threw his first career interception, which led to a Washington field goal. So the taunting penalty was quite likely a 10-point turnaround in a game the Eagles lost by seven points. Terrible, stupid rule. Or at least a terrible, stupid interpretation of a rule that should be only enforced in the event of a true unsportsmanlike display. This was not that.
9. A couple thoughts on the 49ers. While the 13-3 loss to the Seahawks might be freshest in our minds, this is a team that won six of its last seven games and averaged 34 points in their eight games before Seattle. Kyle Shanahan is a heck of a play caller and it will be quite a battle between Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle and Company and Vic Fangio and his group, which has been the best in the league since the bye week. The 49ers don’t have an elite defense, and they’re last in the NFL in sacks among the worst in the league in takeaways. You can run on the 49ers and you can definitely throw on them – their 100.5 opposing passer rating is 7th-worst in the league. It’s going to take the offense playing better than they have in quite a while and another big-time effort from the defense to win this game. I know the defense will be up to it. I’m just not sure about the offense. Can they score 24 to 27 points against a good team? It’s been a while.
10. A few people have asked why Nick Sirianni wouldn’t put some of his guys who were in uniform but hadn’t played in the game in the fourth quarter, once the Lions beat the Bears and that two seed was within reach with a little comeback. But I think that’s a dangerous thing to do. These guys have been sitting around for three hours, mentally they weren’t planning on playing and it’s not fair to them to ask them to go in cold in the fourth quarter. That’s where you’re really putting players at risk. I get that you have Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith on the bench in uniform, and Smith had played in the first quarter, and it could be tempting. But the whole idea of resting those guys is to keep them healthy for the playoffs and bringing them in cold is a good way to get people hurt.
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