In other words, they took the Commanders’ best shot and found a way to swing back harder.
“That’s expected when you come off a season like what we came off,” coach Nick Sirianni told me as he drove home Sunday night. “That’s probably how Kansas City feels each week. That’s a good thing. I always think that’s a good thing, that people want to get up to play you. That means you’re good. That means you’re respected, that they know they have to play their best game to beat you. All those things are positives.”
This week, the positive came to life in a 38–31 win over Washington—with Commanders’ brass still mulling over how they will handle Tuesday’s trade deadline while carrying a staff full of coaches fighting for their jobs. But it came alive only the home team put to work the kind of emptying-the-barrel effort Sirianni referenced in pursuit of a major upset.
The Commanders jumped on the Eagles 14–3 early, with Sam Howell dealing and Philly struggling to cover Washington’s loaded receiver group. Jalen Hurts & Co. still hadn’t reached the end zone as the teams entered the final two minutes of the first half. And midway through the third quarter, Philly was still seeking its first lead.
This, of course, is why so many teams coming off Super Bowl seasons struggle out of the gate the next year. There’s also a reason why the Eagles haven’t.
“How we try to treat our season, you don’t look ahead to anything that’s in front of you,” Sirianni says. “You just take one step at a time. That’s what we call our dog mentality, and we’re just completely locked into the moment and nothing else. We have a dog’s focus, meaning if we’re hunting as a dog, not a lot of things can take our mind off hunting. Whether you’ve caught a ton of rabbits or you haven’t caught any, you’re still focused on that rabbit. That’s kind of our mentality. Our guys don’t blink. That’s easier said than done.”
In other words, there was no magic wand the Eagles waved at a Commanders’ team in desperation mode. Instead, they kept chipping away.
There was a two-minute drive before the half, with Hurts completing seven of seven passes for 65 yards, capped by a spectacular, one-handed grab by A.J. Brown (more on him in a minute) to cut the deficit to 14–10. There was a punt return setting up a shorter drive in the third quarter, with another amazing Brown score tying the game at 17. It was Hurts seeing a coverage bust to hit DeVonta Smith wide open for a 38-yard score, a Reed Blankenship pick setting up Julio Jones’s first Eagles touchdown and a strip sack from Haason Reddick.
It was how a deep, talented team kept coming and coming and coming, until a team primed to knock it off was forced to tap out. It was a team that boringly, singularly and maniacally is only worried about getting better, both individually and as a group.
“They hear it all the time—Super Bowl slump. All these different things,” Sirianni says. “. Our guys just have blocked all that out. We have one loss that, it’s over, but we didn’t play a good game that game, and credit to the Jets for not letting us play a good game. I’m just excited for the team in the sense of, we don’t listen. We gotta hear it because we have to do media and all those different things. But it’s just been a daily grind. …
“I told the team this after the win today: One of the hardest things in the NFL with the length of the season, and the grind of the season is being the same person every day, regardless of it’s a walk-through in Week 1, a walk-through in Week 8, a walk-through in Week 9, a walk-through in Week 15, treating it all the same. Same thing with meetings. When you’re tired, that you have the attention to detail in meetings that you had when you were fresh.”
In combating it, Sirianni continued, his team has shown “this mental toughness of, .”
In seven of eight weeks, they’ve accomplished that. And that it’s happening with, well, everyone gunning for them only makes it that much more impressive.
Brown very clearly would be one. The second-year Eagle (and fifth-year pro) is up to 939 yards and five touchdowns through eight games and has gone for more than 125 yards in a staggering six consecutive games.
Moreover, his biggest catches seem to land in the biggest moments—both his touchdowns Sunday came with the Eagles playing from behind and trying to scratch their way back into the ballgame.
“Think about it—teams are going to roll to him. They’re going to put different types of coverages on him,” Sirianni says. “One of his catches was in Cover 2. Jalen threw a great ball to him. One of them was into like a two-man, where A.J. just went out and out-physicaled the guy for the touchdown. It’s kind of incredible because people are paying attention to him. If I think about it on the other end of the spectrum, it would probably be like a guy having two or three sacks each game for six games. Maybe that’s a stretch.
“I don’t know if that’s a perfect comparison, but what happens when a guy has a sack? There’s more attention paid to him. There’s more attention paid to A.J. That’s what’s impressive. I would say that in the game plan for the defense, it’s You could say he’s done it better than anybody’s ever done it for six games in a row. That’s pretty impressive, and I’m honored to be a part of that with him.”
One fun anecdote Sirianni gave me on Brown that illustrates how he’s gotten to this point—the play on which he hauled in the one-handed touchdown over Benjamin St-Juste may have looked even in practice Friday than it did Sunday. The coach recalled gasping and viscerally reacting with a at that workout.
“It was almost identical,” Sirianni says. “I would be willing to say that the ball he caught in practice might have been even prettier than the one he caught in the game. The one he caught in the game counted for seven, and the one he caught in practice gave us confidence to call it in the game and Jalen confidence to throw it to him. Those guys have a special connection. They went out and made a play. I thought it was a phenomenal throw, too. “
So could a receiver really be league MVP? I still think it’s far-fetched. But such a campaign would start a lot like Brown’s 2023. Or—and we didn’t forget him, Tyreek Hill’s season. The second-year Dolphin, another 2022 trade piece, is already at 1,014 yards and eight touchdowns for the year, and his eight scores are of 35, 4, 2, 54, 69, 41, 27 and 42 yards (he’s had catches of at least 40 yards in five of eight games).
Now, both guys have some advantages, to be sure. Sirianni did mention how the presence of Smith and Dallas Goedert makes it much harder for defenses to overcommit to Brown, and the same goes for Hill, with Jaylen Waddle taking some of the heat off him in Miami.
Still, these guys are really good. Hill’s on pace to become the league’s first 2,000-yard receiver, and Brown’s not far off (1,995 yards). And in both cases, the impact on games and defense and those around them is immense on every snap. So, as I see it, those two are worth at least being a part of that discussion.
