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Eagles vs. Redskins Week 6 Observations and Reaction (With Videos)

Adrian Fedkiw|

Ryan Kerrigan set the tone on the first play from scrimmage when he beat Brent Celek off the edge and ripped Carson Wentz’s jersey before dragging him to the ground.

It didn’t get much better from there. Thirteen penalties, poor play calling, barely any help for your rookie right tackle going up against a Pro Bowler, no pressure on Kirk Cousins and no gap discipline in run defense.

It was ugly.

Cousins threw for 263 yards and two touchdowns, Matt Jones ran for 135 yards and a score and the Washington Redskins hung on for a 27-20 win over the Eagles on Sunday afternoon in a scoreline that could’ve been A LOT worse.

Washington out-gained Philadelphia 493-239 in yards, held a 26-12 advantage in first downs, 67-48 margin in plays run, picked up 230 yards on the ground and was 7-of-13 on third down. And those 13 flags resulted into 114 penalty yards for the Eagles, who have now lost two straight coming out of the bye.

“It’s a long season. We’re not losing hope. We’re not losing any of that edge that we bring on Sunday’s,” Eagles rookie quarterback Carson Wentz said.

Right tackle Halapoulivaati Vaitai struggled mightily in his first career start filling in for the suspended Lane Johnson. And I don’t put all the blame on him because head coach Doug Pederson has to help him out a lot more with chips from the tight ends and runnings backs and more double teams. The downside to this, however, the tight ends and running backs are bigger assets than the wide receivers in the passing game. Helping out Big V eliminates that threat some.

A somber Vaitai admitted postgame that the game speed was a lot different than practice.

“The game speed is fast,” Vaitai said. “It’s a lot different than practice.”

Pederson believed Vaitai improved as the game went along.

“Had a couple of missed assignments early and felt like he settled into the game as the game wore on. We used more help on his side as the game wore on, as well, really on both edges,” he said.

I will give Pederson that, he started giving the rookie more help in the second half. Pederson’s handling of Vaitai was a concern of mine coming in. During my Pederson play-calling series over the summer, I noticed games where Pederson didn’t give his right tackle Jah Reid nearly enough help either, especially when Kansas City was going up against the likes of Khalil Mack and Von Miller.

As you can imagine, Mack and Miller made mincemeat of Reid.

The Eagles are going to have to strongly consider moving left guard Allen Barbre to right tackle and have Stefen Wisniewski or Isaac Seumalu come in and play left guard. Things don’t get any easier next week against the ferocious pass rush of the Minnesota Vikings.

“We’re handed these cards and we’re going to play with the best five guys up front. It is our job as coaches, it is what we are hired to do, to make our players better. We are going to do that this week,” Pederson said.

He better.

The Eagles also failed to generate much pressure going up against one of the top pass blocking offensive lines in the NFL. Due to that, the cornerbacks were exposed, especially seventh-round rookie Jalen Mills, who had a tough day going up against former Eagle DeSean Jackson.

Leodis McKelvin turned out to be a key loss. The depth at cornerback is lacking, maybe Philadelphia should’ve considered hanging onto Eric Rowe.

Wentz, feeling pressure on seemingly every play, finished 11-of-22 for 179 yards. He had just 54 passing yards through the first three quarters before lofting a beautiful 54-yard bomb to Jordan Matthews down the right seam on a 3rd-and-14. Caleb Sturgis’ 38-yard field goal later pulled the Eagles within 24-17 early in the fourth.

By the way, I wasn’t a fan of this 3rd-and-4 call. Pederson took the ball out of Wentz’s hands too much on third down for my liking throughout the game.

A 37-yard completion to Vernon Davis helped the Redskins get into field goal range on their ensuing possession and Dustin Hopkins’ 50-yard field goal upped the advantage back to double digits, 27-17, with 9:43 to go. Wentz fired a pair of darts on consecutive snaps to Dorial Green-Beckham and Zach Ertz for 23 and 22 yards, respectively, on Philadelphia’s next touch to get it right into scoring range.

This critical drop by Ertz on 3rd-and-goal probably would’ve been a touchdown. Instead, Sturgis split the uprights from 28 yards out to claw the Eagles back within a score, 27-20, with 5:20 remaining.

Philly then got a much-needed three-and-out. Fletcher Cox’s power bull rush of the center Spencer Long forced Cousins to scramble to his right and eventually throw it away.

The Eagles moved the chains on a 3rd-and-9 when Wentz side-stepped Chris Baker, stepped up in the pocket and fired an 18-yard strike to Nelson Agholor, putting them into Washington territory.

Wentz, however, held onto the ball too long on critical sacks on second and third down and Pederson elected to punt instead of go for it on 4th-and-24. The rookie was sacked five times after being brought down behind the line of scrimmage just seven times coming in.

Jones then put the game away with this 57-yard scamper on 3rd-and-7.

Earlier, Cousins tossed a 16-yard touchdown to Jamison Crowder on a wheel route and 13-yard score to Vernon Davis on a post on consecutive Redskins scoring drives for a 14-0 margin midway through the second. Smallwood’s 86-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and Malcolm Jenkins’ 64-yard pick-six within a four-minute span remarkably knotted the game at 14-14.

Marcus Smith was unblocked on the interception and Jenkins successfully undercut Vernon Davis before taking it to the house.

Due to the non-offensive scores, 19 minutes and 46 seconds of game time elapsed before the Eagles truly had an offensive snap. They took a knee on the final play of the first half. The Redskins ran 38 plays during that time and tallied 239 yards. The Eagles punted at the 13:26 mark of the second and didn’t regain possession offensively until there was 8:40 to go in the third. In all, 1 hour and 16 minutes passed between offensive plays for the Birds.

Cox’s critical roughing the passer penalty on a 3rd-and-goal extended Washington’s final series prior to the half and Jones’ 1-yard score staked the hosts to a 21-14 spread at the break.

The Redskins opened the second half with a 12-play, 65-yard trek which resulted into a 32-yard Hopkins field goal and a 24-14 lead.

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