The biggest reason Eagles blew it against Commanders

Want to know the biggest reason why the Eagles lost to the Commanders on Monday Night Football?

They couldn’t get off the field.

The Commanders converted 12 of 21 attempts on 3rd down and were 12-for-16 after three quarters as they handed the Eagles a 32-21 loss on national television to end the Birds’ bid for perfection.

Those 12 conversions on 3rd down are the most the Eagles have ever given up in a single game in franchise history.

And no team across the NFL has given up more than 12 conversions on 3rd down in a game this season.

“We just have to get off the field and we didn’t,” linebacker T.J. Edwards said. “They have good players too and they made more plays than we did.”

Coming into Monday night, the Commanders were 27th in the NFL in 3rd-down conversion percentage at 34.2%. And the Eagles were 11th in 3rd-down defense at 37.9%.

So what the heck happened?

“I feel like they had manageable 3rd downs all game so we couldn’t really get to our pass rush downs,” linebacker Kyzir White said. “It was just manageable downs for them that were easier to convert. They were the better team tonight.”

On the Commanders’ 12 conversions on 3rd down, the average yards to gain was just 2.8. The Commanders needed just 1 or 2 yards on 8 of their 12 conversions.

The Eagles gave up 152 rushing yards on Monday night, but they weren’t really gashed on the ground. The Commanders averaged just 3.1 yards per rushing play, but they stuck with it and were happy to go on long chip-away drives against the Eagles. That persistence got them into manageable 3rd downs and kept Jalen Hurts and the Eagles’ offense off the field.

But in the second quarter, the Commanders also converted on 3rd-and-8, 3rd-and-6 and 3rd-and-5 through the air against the Eagles’ loose zone coverages. So they weren’t all 3rd-and-shorts.

By the end of the game, the Commanders had run 81 offensive plays to the Eagles’ 47.

What was it like for the Eagles’ offense to spend so much time on the sideline, especially in the first half?

“It is not the best feeling,” Hurts said.

In addition to the number of plays, the Commanders also held the ball for a total of 40:24 to the Eagles’ 19:36.

That is the biggest time of possession disparity for the Eagles since the Chip Kelly days, when their offense operated at a breakneck speed.

“It definitely felt like we were out there more than usual,” White said.

Eventually, the Eagles did tighten up on 3rd downs. They got the Commanders into more unfavorable situations in the fourth quarter and didn’t allow them to convert on any of their five attempts in the final frame.

But by then the damage was already done.

“We gotta get off the field as a defense,” Brandon Graham said. “If we don’t stop them on 1st or 2nd down or get negative plays or do better on 1st and 2nd down, 3rd-and-short, they’re going to convert every time and that’s what it was. It was just little stuff that we were doing. I just know that we’re going to bounce back.”

Subscribe to the Eagle Eye podcast

Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube