Defensively, the Washington Commanders entered Thursday night's high-stakes game against the Eagles as the No. 5 rated defense against the pass in the NFL, giving up just 1,822 yards through the air. Against the run it's a different story: the 1,427 yards allowed were 28th in the NFL, and the 4.9 yards per carry ranked 29th.
That would signify that it's a good idea for the Eagles, who came in with the No. 2 rusher in the NFL, Saquon Barkley, to keep the focus on simply handing Barkley the ball and letting him do his work.
To an extent, the Eagles did that, giving Barkley 15 first-half carries, a strategy that would have looked better if the Eagles had not stalled out on a drive that got them inside the Washington 10-yard line, and had not missed two field goals in the half.
But it would also help if the Eagles maybe stayed away from trickery and just kept things simple against the Washington front.
Case in point: This would-be end-around flea-flicker "trickery" (as Al Michaels called it) that the Eagles called a little more than a minute into the first half
The play began at the Washington 36-yard line with quarterback Jalen Hurts in the shotgun, handing off to Barkley, who ran the ball wide right. He flipped the ball to receiver DeVonta Smith, who then pitched it back to Hurts.
The problem for the slow-developing play was that Washington's Frankie Luvu had already beaten the Eagles line on the outside and was circling toward Hurts all the time. Almost the instant Hurts took the ball back, Luvu was sacking him for a 13-yard loss.
"A little trickery here," Michaels said on the "Thursday Night Football" broadcast. "But nothing doing. Boy, was that smelled out perfectly."
That's not exactly true--replay shows Luvu blitzing all the way, flea-flicker or not. The real issue was not that Luvu smelled out the play. The issue was that no one was there to block him.
The matchup was a critical one in the NFC East, where the Eagles lead the Commanders by a half-game.
