Kenny Pickett almost won, but the NFL’s toughest defense lost.

After Pickett pushed the Eagles to a few late field goals, the Eagles’ vaunted defense allowed the Commanders to drive the length of the field for their third touchdown of the fourth quarter.

The winning streak is over, their No. 1 seed hopes have suffered a major setback and the Eagles may have to regroup Sunday against the Cowboys without Jalen Hurts, who is now suffering from a concussion.

For the first time in five years, the Eagles blew a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter.

Commanders 36, Eagles 33.

That was bad.

1. The defense had played so well since the bye that it was shocking to see them collapse like that – 36 points, 368 yards, five TD passes, 22 points in the fourth quarter. They allowed more points in the final 13 1/2 minutes of the game than in any game since the bye. They simply fell apart in the fourth quarter, allowing touchdown drives of 61, 87 and 57 yards, including the game-winning touchdown pass from Jayden Daniels to Jamison Crowder with six seconds left. Daniels kept the Eagles’ defense off balance by both throwing and running in the fourth quarter, and the Eagles looked exhausted trying to slow him and his receivers down. In the fourth quarter alone, Daniels threw for 139 yards with three touchdowns. In total, he threw five touchdowns and ran for 82 yards against the league’s top-rated pass defense. The Eagles were missing Josh Sweat, who left in the second quarter with an ankle injury, and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who was sent off after his second unsportsmanlike conduct. The Eagles forced five turnovers, which was encouraging, but they had no answer in the fourth quarter. The coverage collapsed, the tackling collapsed, the pass rush was nonexistent. They just needed one last stop and couldn’t get it.

2. Pickett wasn’t perfect at all, but damn, he gave the Eagles a chance to win, if not for late drops from Saquon Barkley in the right flat on a field goal drive and DeVonta Smith over the middle on the next play the Eagles won the game and would still continue their winning streak. Pickett had a nice TD pass to AJ Brown on his first drive and also had that 45-yarder to Brown on a non-scoring drive, picked up 67 yards on three DPIs from Marshon Lattimore to AJ Brown and converted two gutsy 4th down passes on a field goal drive in the 4th quarter. The interception deep in Eagles territory was terrible and led directly to Washington’s first touchdown, and his fumble deep in Washington territory could have been disastrous. Luckily, Lane Johnson recovered. But Pickett put 26 points on the scoreboard in his first season in a year and in his first game as an Eagle against the NFL’s No. 4 pass defense, and without those two losses, he wins the game. Most likely, Pickett will start Sunday against the Cowboys, although it’s not unusual for someone to complete the protocol in a week. If he plays like that on Sunday against the Cowboys, he will give the Eagles a chance.

3. Chauncey Gardner-Johnson is playing great football and his interception on Sunday was his fourth during the winning streak. But he always acted aggressively and was sent off the field midway through the third quarter for his second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. You love his energy and liveliness, but he just can’t let that happen. And who covered Olamide Zaccheaus on his touchdown catch in the fourth quarter? Tristin McCallum, who came on for CJ. That was Gardner-Johnson’s man. He must be smarter. He’s in his sixth year now and he should know better. Must. Play hard, play physical, play with an edge, but you have to know where the line is and not cross it.

4. It’s really hard to lose a game when you have five takeaways. Teams that have forced five turnovers in the last 10 years are 71-5 this week and 235-18 in the last 20 years. The Eagles hadn’t lost a game by five takeaways since 1999, and they had a 45-3 record in such games since 1975. Two takeaways: It’s great to see the Eagles defense so aggressive. But when you get five takeaways, you have to take advantage of those opportunities, and the Eagles didn’t do that. They scored seven after the first turnover, but the next four takeaways yielded just six points – a punt, a missed field goal and two field goals. These are opportunities that you cannot miss. Five takeaways are great. Ten points off these takeaways are terrible.

5. When Josh Sweat left the game with an ankle injury in the second quarter, the Eagles had real trouble generating pressure, and that’s not surprising. This injury meant the Eagles were without Sweat, Bryce Huff and Brandon Graham from their original edge rotation. With Huff still inactive after wrist surgery and BG out for the year, Smith, rookie third-round pick Jalyx Hunt and the Dolphins’ 2017 first-round pick Charles Harris are the only healthy edge rushers, and it doesn’t look that way , as if Harris had done it in the game. Nolan Smith got an early sack, but the Commanders — who had allowed 20 sacks in their previous five games — didn’t allow another sack the rest of the game, and they barely put Daniels under pressure on their final three touchdown drives. And when they did, he just ran away. We don’t know how long Sweat will be out or when Huff will be back, but they need both guys if they’re going to build the pressure they need.

More to come…