LANDOVER, Md. – Is there a sufficient explanation?

Maybe it’s as obvious as the scoreboard that kept blinking obnoxiously at Northwest Stadium.

WASHINGTON COMMANDERS WIN. WASHINGTON COMMANDERS WIN.

Maybe a 36-33 loss is exactly what happens when the Philadelphia Eagles lose their starting quarterback.

Jalen Hurts went down and was hit in the helmet by linebacker Frankie Luvu in the first quarter. Hurts stood up. He returned to the group. But the officials sent him to the sidelines. Kenny Pickett came on as a replacement. Out went Hurts to the medical tent. Pickett completed two passes to AJ Brown. The Eagles called a timeout on third-and-goal at the 4. Hurts left the tent and threw a few warmup throws. But Pickett stayed in. He hit Brown for a 4-yard score. The Eagles led 14-0. Hurts spent the rest of the game in the locker room and was forced out due to a concussion.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni had no update on the status of his starting quarterback. Sirianni also didn’t accept the messy injury as a blanket explanation for the defeat, which ended his team’s 12-game winning streak. No, Sirianni said, he would be “a hypocrite” if he turned on the tape Monday and changed the way he doles out his responsibility points.

Over 100 rushing yards in…
*checks notes*
THE FIRST QUARTER!@saquon | #ProBowlVote pic.twitter.com/bkzqjvTQ7i

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) December 22, 2024

The Eagles (12-3) entered the fourth quarter with a 27-14 lead, big enough to secure their second NFC East title in three years. Pickett’s patchwork play — 14 of 24 passes for 143 yards, a touchdown and an interception — was also enough to take a 33-28 lead after the Commanders stormed back. But a dismal defense and sloppy special teams (and a Detroit Lions win) did even more damage, delaying the division title and all but ending Philadelphia’s chances of the NFC’s No. 1 seed and a first-round bye.

Darius Slay: “That was simply a miscommunication.”

That happened when Slay, who was sidelined for three plays in the fourth quarter, ran back onto the field after informing one defensive backs coach but not the other. At that moment, the starting cornerback saw backup Kelee Ringo “locked in the slot doing his job” and attempted to return to the sideline. Ringo said it was a “misunderstanding in the package – who was on the field, who was supposed to be off the field.”

The error could not be justified given the stakes. The Eagles defended a six-point lead with 9:18 to play. But Slay said he was told to replace backup Isaiah Rodgers, who had already replaced him earlier in the drive. Instead, Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels quickly called for the first-and-10 snap while both Slay and Ringo were on the field. Nobody covered Olamide Zacchaeus. Ringo and safety Reed Blankenship both missed tackles, while Zacchaeus scored on a 49-yard touchdown reception to secure a 28-27 lead.

Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s unit was reliably dominant. The Eagles hadn’t given up more than 23 points since their 33-16 loss to the Tampa Buccaneers in Week 4. They had only given up 10 passes over 30 yards. They had suffocated their opponents entering the weekend with the fewest yards per drive in the NFL (26.5). On Sunday they folded in every category. Worst of all was their repeated inability to defend a long field.

Eagles punter Braden Mann tied the Commanders at their 13 before the 49-yard touchdown gave them the lead. Earlier, with the Eagles leading 21-7 in the second quarter, Mann’s punt put the Commanders on their own 4th. Fangio immediately sent five rushers and Daniels engineered a 51-yard completion to Dyami Brown, who beat Slay deep down the field. Daniels, later blitzed on third-and-8, launched a 32-yard touchdown to Terry McLaurin, leading the wideout, who had gotten past rookie cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, with a well-placed pass just behind McLaurin’s left shoulder.

“It happens,” Slay shrugged. “These guys make money too.”

Philadelphia couldn’t contain Daniels. Before the No. 2 pick’s touchdown to McLaurin, Daniels converted a fourth-and-4 situation with a 5-yard scramble. In a fourth-and-11 situation on the final play of the third quarter, Daniels scrambled for 29 yards. Three plays later, Daniels found Zaccheaus open again for a 4-yard score. Suddenly the lead had shrunk from two points to 27:21. Daniels completed 24 of 39 passes for 258 yards, a career-high five touchdowns and two interceptions.

“I mean, they’re a good team,” linebacker Nakobe Dean said. “They made some plays. We knew they were going to make some plays. We knew it was going to be a fight. But we know we have to play better. We know we have to do better.”

Sufficient?

How about referee Shawn Smith’s explanation for disqualifying starting Eagles safety CJ Gardner-Johnson early in the third quarter?

The Eagles led 24-14. Gardner-Johnson, who had previously been penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct, was cited again when a small scuffle broke out between members of the Eagles’ defense and the Commanders’ offense during a commercial break. Eagles safety Dom DiSandro accompanied the defensive back to the locker room. Gardner-Johnson, voted “most annoying” in an anonymous league-wide player poll, double-birded the crowd before disappearing into the tunnel.

What led to the punishment?

“He basically taunts the opponent on the second foul,” Smith told a pool reporter.

Were there any considerations about punishing both sides?

“Well, we only had the one foul,” Smith said.

The Eagles still had the ball. And a two-point lead. Zack Baun had just released a fumble that Nolan Smith recovered at the Washington 43. The Commanders turned the ball over five times. They lost three fumbles. The Eagles scored 13 points on those extra possessions; On one drive they hit a punt, on the other Jake Elliott missed a 56-yard field goal. It’s only the second time the Eagles have lost in the Sirianni era despite winning the turnover margin. Sunday’s margin (+3) was tied with their Week 10 win over the Dallas Cowboys and gave them their largest margin of victory in 2024.

The Eagles also failed to capitalize on penalties. Brown, who spent most of the game in a one-on-one with cornerback Marshon Lattimore, drew three pass interference calls against Lattimore on the first two drives of the second half. Lattimore committed two penalties early in the third quarter. But on third-and-3 at the Washington 4, Saquon Barkley failed to find an open receiver on a wildcat pass, slipped, and the Eagles settled for a 24-yard Elliott field goal and a 24- 14 leadership.

Baun’s forced fumble quickly gave the Eagles the ball back. A facemask penalty bailed them out of a third-and-16 situation, another Lattimore interference flag prevented a third-and-9, and yet Pickett was sacked on a third-and-8 at the Washington 11. Elliott’s 40-yard field goal extended the lead to 27-14. The Commanders gave the Eagles 83 yards of penalty on those two drives, but the Eagles only managed 22 yards on their own.

“Sloppy,” Sirianni summed up the loss. “Sloppy with penalties. Careless with too many men on the field. Careless with our basics. And if you play against a good football team like we did today and you’re sloppy, it’s going to be hard to win, no matter how many turnovers you force.”

Pickett’s game was patchy. His early commitment to Brown became a tendency that commanders exploited. Pickett, on his first dropback of his second drive, tried to hit Brown with a short jerk down the right seam. But Luvu dropped back in zone coverage and the pass hit Luvu right in the chest. It was a disastrous turnover. The Eagles led 14-0. The Commanders had managed just eight yards on their first three drives. The interception landed them on the Eagles’ 25th line. Daniels needed five plays to score his first touchdown of the game.

Pickett recovered. He later completed a 45-yard pass to Brown, who eclipsed 1,000 yards receiving with 97 yards on eight catches in his third straight season with the Eagles. Pickett completed two fourth-down throws — one to DeVonta Smith, one to Brown — on a fourth-quarter drive in which Elliott’s 50-yard field goal gave the Eagles a 30-28 lead with 3:53 to play. (Elliott’s performance shouldn’t be underestimated either. He missed his last six attempts of 50+ yards in 2024.)

“(Pickett) did a great job handling everything,” Brown said. “He knew what to do. He played with confidence and threw the ball. Kudos to him for playing in… a big game where they change their looks and throw everything at him.”

It is uncertain how long Hurts will remain in the concussion protocol. If Pickett has to play against the Cowboys next week, the Eagles will once again be limited in their zone read concepts – a key part of their running game. Barkley praised Pickett’s play while still admitting that losing Hurts “definitely hurt us.” Barkley’s 68-yard touchdown gave the Eagles a 21-7 lead in the first quarter. He finished the game with 150 yards on 29 carries and two touchdowns. But 109 of his rushing yards came in the first quarter. Barkley said the Commanders moved more defenders near the box, tightening their approach against an offense without the possibility of a dual threat.

Sirianni has long defended Hurts in 2024, saying often that the quarterback belongs in the MVP conversation. The Eagles got a taste of what their offense would look like without him. His health is the team’s main concern heading into the final two games of the season. But it’s alarming that the Eagles had a two-point lead and couldn’t defend it. They are a franchise that won its only Super Bowl with a backup quarterback. The organization’s commitment to investing in contingency options is why general manager Howie Roseman acquired Pickett in a trade with the Pittsburgh Steelers in March.

They will look for sufficient explanation when they watch film of the game in which they breathed life into a Commanders team that could face them again in a wild-card match at Lincoln Financial Field.

“It’s going to go exactly the way you think it will,” Dean said. “Responsibility is a big part of our team. People will hold each other accountable, and people will hold each other accountable everywhere, from top to bottom. Coaches and everyone too.”

(Top photo: Timothy Nwachukwu / Getty Images)